Lady Luck
by Sm0keyPanda
Summary: When a very strange girl is brought to Beacon under shockingly familiar circumstances, she is placed with the most eventful and promising team at Beacon in the canon series - team RWBY. Follow the adventures of team RWBYC (Rubies) through the events of the show, now with a little... addition. ON HIATUS. Rated M for swearing and dark themes.
1. Chapter 1 - Roman's Luck

**Lady Luck  
** **Act I - Welcome To Beacon**

"Relax, relax, I'm not here for your money." He turned to his henchmen. Hopefully they were better ones than last time. Roman was **not** happy with Junior's last bunch. "Grab the Dust."

He watched several of his henchmen begin to grab the Dust from the tubes on the wall, while another one demanded the uncut red crystals from the shopkeeper.

 _Ugh, red. Still leaves a bad taste in my mouth._

No sooner had he thought this than one of his henchman went flying out the window.

"Oh, you have **got** to be kidding me. Again?!"

As he muttered this sentence he saw the girl who had tackled his man through the window. Although, he didn't see the henchman getting up. Only question was, knocked out or dead?

Roman watched as the girl stood, and bowed to him. She looked to be about the same age as Red was, but with a decidedly different colour scheme.

This girl had a black dress shirt on, with seemingly random streaks and splotches of both green and purple. She had dress pants with a similar scheme, but her combat boots were simple black.

She had a jacket on that looked like one a war veteran might wear, with a multitude of pockets. The jacket was a green so dark as to almost be black, with the cuffs being purple - it also appeared to have several armoured plates, mostly on the left arm from shoulder to wrist.

This strange girl also had a black top hat with a thin band of purple cloth around it, which had somehow stayed on despite going through a window.

On the top hat were a playing card stuck through the band of cloth, and a pair of goggles. The goggles had what appeared to be a crosshairs with a hole in the centre on one lens, with the other lens having an attachment that looked like it folded down. Probably to magnify certain things.

Overall, if Roman had to describe the look in one phrase, it would be: Deluded, Twisted Steampunk.

He finished looking over the girl's outfit and stared into her light blue eyes (or was it green? It was very difficult to tell; maybe they changed colours?), just as she looked into his, a grin on her face. She beckoned with one finger in a 'come hither' gesture.

"Okaay. Get her." He said pointedly to the henchmen.

"But... sir, that's Lady Luck."

 _Well, fuck._

He knew who Lady Luck was, if only by her reputation. She was a big name in the gambling community, especially the underground section. However, she was extremely unpopular. Not only did she seem to win every single game she played - although she only ever played games involving cards - but when an entire club full of people had gotten sick of it and tried to attack her...

Well. Only 4 people left that place alive, and they were the ones who hadn't tried to attack her. Junior, and apparently the man standing next to Roman, were 2 of them. That wasn't the worst part.

Apparently she'd killed them all with a mad grin on her face.

"Change of plans," Roman muttered as he aimed Melodic Cudgel in the direction of Lady Luck. As he fired, he shifted his aim slightly downward, so the round hit the road in front of the girl. As he ran for his life with the henchmen in tow, he managed to catch a glimpse of her back-flipping away from the explosion.

 _Good, that'll keep her occupied long enough for me to get to the Bullhead._

As he was flying away, there were a few thoughts running through his head.

 _She looked like the same age as Red. Not to mention stopping one of MY robberies as well. Something about this doesn't feel right._

 _Ah, who cares._

 _She just got lucky._

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

 **Welcome to my second fic!**

 **I dunno, I sorta thought it up on a whim. The OC was something inspired from a multitude of characters from various things, I don't even remember most of them.**

 **As far as I know, I'll be going through most of team RWBY's adventures through at least Volumes 1 and 2... with a little addition in the form of "Lady Luck". Effectively, team RWBY is going to become team RWBYC (Rubies). With this will come a myriad of changes, not least to how some events play out.**

 **For reference on what the outfit (particularly the jacket, hat and goggles) looks like, refer to the music video for The Ballad Of Mona Lisa, by Panic! At The Disco.**

 **The steampunk-ish outfit he's wearing before he's killed is what I'm basing this off of, except with a different colour scheme, no splotches of weird paint, no pocket-watch on the collar, and instead of gears and weird metallic tassels, it's armour on the opposite arm. The jacket on "Lady Luck" is also a bit longer, down to her knees - more like a coat. Also, the hat sits at roughly a 20 degree angle to her head, no matter how far she tilts her head. She can be upside down and her jacket will be flipping up if it's open, but the hat will stay on.**


	2. Chapter 2 - Familiar Circumstances

The robber was getting away. That was okay. The girl didn't really care. She just wanted to stop the noisy henchman from bothering her, after he tried to rob her. Oh well.

The girl decided it was time to leave. As she turned her back to the shop and started walking away, she was wondering what to have for dinner.

Then the blonde woman landed in front of her. What a strange woman, to jump from a rooftop.

"Hello! Why do you have a riding crop?" The girl asked curiously.

"I'm a Huntress. It's my weapon. Are you the one who stopped this robbery?"

"I guess. The guy got away with the Dust though."

"I see... Come with me. You are in big trouble, young lady!" The strange blonde woman seemed angry. Hm, maybe better to go with her. The girl was good, but luck only got one so far in a fight against a truly skilled opponent.

"Hmmm... Okay!" The girl chirped out.

* * *

Glynda Goodwitch was disconcerted, to say the least.

When she had arrived at the scene, she had found an eerily similar situation as to when they found that Ruby girl. This girl had apparently stopped one of Torchwick's robberies, and the man had gotten away. Not to mention the fact that this girl seemed to be the same age as Ruby.

That wasn't what disconcerted her, however. What disconcerted her was the fact that throughout their conversation, and the entire trip to the room she was currently in, the girl had kept a grin on her face. Add that to the fact they could not find any information on this girl, even a name, and it made for a very, **very** strange girl.

Glynda walked through the door and stood in the corner of the room, watching the girl and waiting for the only person who would be crazy enough to do this twice.

"Am I in trouble?" The girl asked, with that grin never leaving her face. Maybe she was doing it just to freak Glynda out.

"If it were up to me, yes." Glynda sighed. "However, I don't think you will be in trouble. Now stop grinning like a lunatic."

The girl suddenly burst into laughter, so much that the stunned professor could see tears running down her face.

"Oh... Ohhh... Did you see your face?!" The girl burst into another fit of laughter, but seemed to settle down after a minute, and the mad grin settled into a sly, knowing smile. Glynda remained **highly** unamused. Lucky for the girl, Ozpin chose this moment to waltz through the door, this time holding a tray with a tea set on it in both hands. Glynda took a moment to realise his ever-present mug was on the tray. He always had that mug, and today was no different it seemed.

Meanwhile, the girl was clapping in delight, and quickly poured herself a cup of tea into one of the provided teacups. Sipping from it, she sighed contentedly. Ozpin chuckled quietly.

"Hello." He began.

"So why would a headmaster of a combat school be visiting little old me? Unless of course it's for my skills. You want me at Beacon. Question is, why? The better question is, why should I?" The girl spoke all this with what seemed to be a goofy grin plastered on her face. However, her eyes seemed to give away that she was much more clever than she seemed. She already knew.

Ozpin simply sat there and sipped his mug, a calm expression on his face, while Glynda looked on in astonishment.

"Hmm, fighting Grimm would be undeniably fun, and having 'friends' and 'teammates' could be very interesting too. I'll do it!" The girl continued after a small pause.

"First Miss Goodwitch has to ask a few questions." Ozpin said calmly, as though he expected this response. For all the blonde professor knew, he **was** expecting this response.

"Of course." The girl turned to Goodwitch and started to rattle off information, with Glynda only just managing to keep up. "Name's Jade, no last name, semblances classified, weapons classified, age is 15, orphan, no address, no bank account." Glynda was simply astonished by half of this information. The girl was indeed the same age as Ruby, and an orphan? What a life she must have led.

Glynda was confused as to why her weapon was classified, and apparently her multiple semblances as well, but she let it go and wrote the information down.

Turning back to Ozpin, the girl continued, "I'll have to get my things from my hotel room. Mainly just 3 travel bags." To this, Ozpin simply nodded.

Ozpin stopped her before she left, "You may have to change your name to get in to Beacon through official means. I'm guessing you have a criminal history under that identity." The girl nodded and thought about it.

"Put me down as Chessur." Ozpin smiled and nodded.

As she was about to leave, she heard him say quietly to himself, "The Cheshire Cat of old. Truly a remarkable girl." Chessur smiled as she left, glad he knew the story. Perhaps the headmaster was someone more interesting than she had previously thought. Who else would know a story that was written more than 200 years ago? There were no copies left, after all.

Glynda could do nothing but shake her head in amazement. This was sizing up to be an **extremely** interesting year.

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

 **I figure if Neo can seemingly have 2 semblances (Illusions and teleporting) why can't Chessur? So yes, she will have 2 semblances. You'll have to wait to find out what they are.**


	3. Chapter 3 - Meeting Ruby Rose

As Chessur walked onto the airship she couldn't help but giggle, a lunatic's grin on her face. This in of itself persuaded most of the people on the airship - staff included - to stay away from the girl with the top hat. 1 or 2 of the cockier soon-to-be-students tried to start conversations with her, but realised after a few minutes that she was extremely weird. One might go so far as to say crazy.

"I don't wanna **be** the bee's knees! I just wanna be a normal girl, with normal knees!" A girl in a red cape (or was it a cloak?) said to the blonde girl next to her.

Waltzing over, neither girl noticed Chessur until she spoke.

"Being normal is so boring though. Be like me. Be one of the weird ones, the crazy ones." A glint appeared in her eyes. "The mad ones. We're all mad here." She then walked off like the conversation had never happened. Both girls were completely stunned until a hologram of Goodwitch appeared to welcome them to Beacon.

* * *

"Sorry!"

"Sorry?! Do you have any idea the damage you could've caused?!"

Chessur was amused watching the white girl yell at the red one from earlier, so she decided to see how this played out. She laughed out loud when the red girl exploded, but the sound was covered by said explosion. Chessur was surprised when the girl in black stepped in and reprimanded the white girl, but it was still highly amusing. As both walked away, she decided to make a 'friend' with the red girl. She seemed nice enough to not kill. The girl flopped down on the ground, and as Chessur approached she heard the girl mutter, "Welcome to Beacon."

"Welcome indeed. Although I imagine exploding won't earn you any brownie points." Chessur said with a grin on her face. The girl's eyes bolted open, and as Chessur gazed into her eyes for a second, she could see something. **Real** power. This girl was definitely going to be a good friend to have.

"Hey, not my fault! She waved Dust at me!"

Chessur chuckled, "I know, I saw."

The red girl deflated, going back to the ground. Chessur offered a hand out, and the girl took it.

"I'm Chessur. Just call me Chess," she said with a wink.

"Oh! I'm Ruby. Ruby Rose." The red girl beamed back.

As they got more acquainted they walked around the large school, and Chess noted they were pretty much going in circles. Chess didn't mind, circles were better than triangles after all.

 _Damn triangles. Can't trust them, they're always up to no good..._

"Chess, you okay?" Ruby looked at her worriedly.

As Chess looked up she smiled warmly and gave a thumbs up. Ruby suddenly pulled out her weapon and slammed it into the ground.

"Soo, I have this... What's yours?"

As Chess examined her friend's weapon, she noted every aspect of it out loud, ignoring the question.

"High impact, high damage sniper-scythe, bolt action. Why not semi-auto?"

Ruby seemed stunned her new friend knew that much about weapons, so she stuttered out the reply as best she could, "Uh, I-It would've reduced the power behind the shots. Plus with my speed semblance I can make it shoot faster than a semi-auto."

Chess simply hummed in approval, expecting part of the answer. This girl had obviously built her weapon, and it was very good indeed. Ruby's knowledge of weapons was incredibly large for one so young.

"My actual weapons are classified, you might see them in initiation, but I can show you my backup. It's a simple combat knife, with Dust absorption capabilities." As she said this, she pulled out the knife and flipped it in a series of maneouvers even Ruby had trouble following.

"Ooooo!" Ruby said as she admired the simple, yet elegant knife.

"Hm, I think I hear a gathering of squares. Possibly some sneaky triangles too." Chess suddenly started walking in a direction. Ruby listened for a second and realised she could hear what might have been a large gathering of people, coming from the direction Chess was walking. Ruby quickly caught up and walked beside Chess into the hall.

As they walked in, Ruby was called over by the blonde girl. Noting that the blonde called her 'sis', Chess stored the information and followed Ruby without the red girl realising.

"How's your first day going little sister?" The blonde smiled at Ruby.

"You mean since you ditched me and I exploded?!" Ruby said, clearly in a grumpy mood.

"Yikes, meltdown already?"

"No, she did explode. Literally. It was hilarious, there was fire and ice and lightning! You should've seen the white girl's face!" Chess quickly interrupted, a mad grin on her face the entire time.

The blonde simply looked to Ruby with questioning eyes. All the blonde heard of the reply was "She's not wrong..."

The white girl suddenly appeared behind Ruby.

"YOU!"

"AAAHH! It's happening again!" With this sentence Ruby jumped into the blonde's arms.

"You're lucky we weren't blown off the side of the cliff!" The girl with the white hair looked angrier with every word.

"Oh my god, you really exploded." The blonde had a look of grim surprise and worry on her face.

Tittering as she went, Chess quickly snuck away to find her own place to sit during the speech... Above the crowd, in the rafters. Sitting with her boots flush against the ceiling and her head hanging down, she saw Professor Ozpin walk up to the microphone.

"I'll... Keep this brief." He paused a moment to push his glasses further up his nose.

"You have travelled here today in search of knowledge; to hone your craft and acquire new skills. And when you have finished, you plan to dedicate your life to the protection of the people."

Chess snickered, struggling not to laugh out loud.

"But I look amongst you, and all I see is wasted energy; in need of purpose and direction."

Chess stopped snickering. Instead she started to stare curiously at the headmaster, a mad grin on her face, wondering where he was going with this. She completely agreed with him in terms of everyone else here being wasted energy, but wanted to see how he finished.

"You assume knowledge will free you of this, but your time at this school will prove that knowledge can only carry you so far. It is up to you, to take the first step."

With that, he walked off stage and the professor named Goodwitch stepped forward. However, before she could say anything, the entire hall heard loud clapping and laughter from above them. As one, the entire hall - except for Ozpin, who ignored it and kept walking to his office - stared up at the rafters to see a girl hanging upside down, with a top hat that was somehow still staying on her head and a mad grin plastered on her face. They all stared in amazement, even after Chess stopped clapping, and so she took a mock bow while upside down.

Taking command of the audience's eyes once more, professor Goodwitch told them they would be staying in the ballroom and that initiation was the next day. As the students began to file out, a few looked to see if the girl in the rafters was still there, but she had vanished.

* * *

 **Later that night...**

Chess had blown out all the candles on one of the chandeliers, and was now sitting on it, looking down upon the horde of students. She quickly noticed one with a black bow on her head. Deducing instantly that she was a faunus by the way her bow twitched, Chess noticed the girl glancing constantly at her with a semi-panicked look on her face. She kept pretending to read the book she had in her hands, but Chess could tell she was uncomfortable.

Before the mad girl could do anything, however, Ruby and her sister - Chess had found out her name was Yang - walked over to the girl. As their conversation went on, Chess eavesdropped and discovered the girl's name - Blake. Soon enough the white girl from before had come over and started arguing with the sisters, prompting Blake to simply blow out the candle with an unspoken command for everyone to go to bed.

Chess had superb night vision, however. In fact, she had heard that her night vision compared to most faunus' night vision, and had been very pleased.

Getting up and jumping from chandelier to chandelier, she noticed the amber-eyed faunus following her. Chess quickly led her outside, and proceeded to balance on top of the fountain while grinning at the moon madly.

Once she noticed the girl hiding behind a corner of the building, she quickly appeared behind Blake.

"Why are you following me..." She said in a sly voice, yanking off the bow to discover cat ears. "...Little kitten?"

Blake looked panicked, and quickly snatched the bow back and re-tied it in her hair to cover the cat ears. She then turned her attention to Chess, who had never changed into pyjamas.

"You're **her** , aren't you? You're Lady Luck." Blake's voice sounded accusatory, but Chess merely giggled.

"Perhaps I am, perhaps I'm not. Why would a little kitten care...? Unless you knew me. Unless you feared me. But only criminals know me. Only criminals need to fear my retaliation. So the bigger question is..." She saw Blake's eyes widen in shock as she deduced all this information. "Are you still a criminal?"

Gulping, Blake quickly shook her head. Chessur giggled.

"Now that's a good little kitten." She smirked. Blake shot her a glare before remembering who the girl was. Chess laughed again, then waved goodbye.

Then, the mad girl winked, and did a backflip onto the roof, vanishing from sight.

With that, Blake went back to bed. She was too tired. Besides, the odds she would end up interacting with Lady Luck were pretty small.


	4. Chapter 4 - The First Step

Chessur looked from side to side, taking in the other students lined up along the cliff. She noticed several interesting people. There was the quiet one in green, and the redhead in golden armour. There was a bumbling buffoon, and the sisters. There was the heiress - everyone knew her name, but they called her Ice Queen anyway; Chess liked that, she'd probably use it too. There was the faunus. Then there was the hyperactive one with orange hair. She seemed like Chessur's kind of crazy. Chess made sure to make a mental note: _make friends with the orange hair girl_. There were a few other people, but they were all boring.

There were also quite a few people staring at her after the mad girl's stunt in the main hall after Ozpin's speech.

As the students took their places on what appeared to be metal platforms, Chess and the girl with orange hair both smiled. They had figured out what was going to happen, and were going to love it. As soon as all the students were in place, Ozpin began speaking.

"For years you have trained to become warriors, and today your abilities will be evaluated in the Emerald Forest."

As professor Goodwitch explained that teams would be formed today, and Ozpin furthered that partners should be able to work well together, Chess was not really paying attention, more focused on checking her equipment was secure. Her attention was drawn, however, at Ozpin's next sentence.

"That being said, the first person you make eye contact with after landing will be your partner for the next four years."

Chess smiled. Oh, this was good. She could pick whoever she wanted and land in their general vicinity. She saw Ruby have a small breakdown right then and there, and laughed out loud, causing a few students to look at her. As she wiped a fake tear from her eye, she adopted a mad grin, waiting for Ozpin to explain the objective.

Before he explained anything, he stressed how dangerous this initiation would be.

"Do not hesitate to destroy everything in your path, or you **will** die."

Chessur's grin simply went wider, almost seeming too large for the realm of possibility. As the ear-to-ear grin spread, Ozpin looked directly at her, his unreadable face simply continuing the explanation. He continued the explanation about collecting the relics and returning to the cliff.

After asking for questions, he ignored the buffoon's raised hand and watched as the students started to fly off. After the orange haired girl went, the quiet one in green was sent flying. Then it was Chessur's turn. She wooped for joy as she flew through the air, and even at the extreme speeds, her hat never fell nor changed position on her head. She simply pulled the goggles off mid-flight and put them on, grinning madly all the while.

As Chess flew through the air, she managed to slow herself down long enough to see where her soon-to-be partner was headed. Grinning, she headed in that direction, landing not far from where they were.

* * *

Ruby hit a bird mid-air.

"Birdie, no!"

Thankfully, she was able to land safely despite this. Once she landed, she began running fast, trying to find Yang. If she could be partners with her sister, that would be golden. No pun intended. She looked back to where she was going, and stopped when she noticed something in her path.

A small shroud of mist had appeared in front of her, almost impossible to see through. As Ruby approached it cautiously, she fell over, startled.

An inhumanly wide grin had appeared in the mist. Not a head, just the teeth. Then she saw the eyes were there too, green ones (or were they light blue?).

After a second Ruby heard a giggle from the mist, and Chess formed out of it, still wearing the impossibly wide grin.

"Sorry little Rose, I just couldn't resist a bit of fun." Chess winked at Ruby.

Meanwhile the red-caped girl was almost in shock from the whole event, but managed to break out of her dazedness to realise something.

"This means we're partners! Aww, I wanted to find Yang!"

Chess simply chuckled at this, then seemed to turn into mist which had evaporated within a second. She then appeared behind Ruby and provided a solution.

"I won't tell if you don't..." Ruby heard while a hand lay itself on her shoulder. Ruby jumped, turning to face the strange girl.

"But... The teachers said they were monitoring..."

"I happen to know the teachers aren't monitoring this exact spot, little Rose. Besides, even if they were..." Chess winked. "I'm sure luck would be on my side."

Ruby still seemed hesitant to deny her a partner, so Chess didn't leave her a choice. Fading away into the grin and eyes again, she said one sentence before even they vanished and Chessur left Ruby alone to find another partner.

"See you around, Ruby Rose..."

* * *

Using her semblance to get to the temple was the easy part. Avoiding most of the Grimm, she arrived to find chess pieces on pedestals, all untouched. She was the first here then. She noticed something off after a few seconds.

 _Why are there 3 white knights?_

She thought for a minute before realising. Ozpin had this planned. He knows the psychology of most of these students, he's had many before them. He has a good idea of what they'd pick... and he's placed Chess with a certain team. Hmm, this could be interesting.

Chess grabbed the white knight, and waited for the others to arrive. She didn't want to influence the team, so she did what she thought was best. She evaporated into a nearby tree and stayed hidden.

Now all she had to do was wait, and see if Ozpin's ideas for her team had been in line with her own...


	5. Chapter 5 - Players and Pieces

Chess watched as the brutish boys collected the black bishops and left. Hmm, they looked like they might be fun to play with...

Not long after that, Yang and Blake arrived. After looking around at the chess pieces, they grabbed one of the white knights. Hmm, so the sister and the faunus would be on her team. Interesting.

Not long after that, things started to get hectic. First Ruby fell from the sky, then got hit into a nearby tree by the baffoon. Then the orange haired one and the quiet one came in, with the orange haired one riding an Ursa. Chessur's eyes widened. Now **THAT** looked like a **lot** of fun.

Almost right after they came in, the red-haired one came running in with a Deathstalker on her tail. The orange haired one took this time to grab a white rook. After Yang had a mini freakout, Chess took a moment to listen in to their conversations, hearing names. Jaune, Pyrrha, Ren, and especially Nora. Nora was going to be lots of fun.

Ruby pointed out something in the sky to her sister, and when Chessur looked up she was amazed to see Weiss Schnee hanging on to the talon of a Nevermore. Ruby must have fallen - or jumped - from it, which meant the heiress was her partner. Chess **almost** lost the grin in feeling bad for Ruby.

Almost.

As the white-haired snob fell from the sky, the buffoon - Jaune, she remembered - jumped like an idiot to 'save' her. All he ended up doing was being a slightly softer landing cushion for her. Chess couldn't help but snicker. Luckily for her - _heh_ \- she was too high in the tree for them to hear such a small noise. She paid attention again when Ruby charged to deal with the Deathstalker herself. Chess actually did lose her grin, and frowned. That was not going to end well.

So instead, Chessur appeared in front of the girl once again, smiling, and 'gently' pushed her back. In reality she shoved Ruby back to the group, basically throwing her 20 metres. Chess then turned to the Deathstalker and smiled. Raising her hand, the Aces of Spades, Hearts, Clubs and Diamonds suddenly appeared between her fingers. Grinning like a mad woman, she threw them as they started to glow blue.

The cards struck the scorpion Grimm and suddenly half of it was encased in ice. Ruby simply stared at the scorpion, unable to comprehend what she had just seen. The girl in the top hat had managed to appear, throw Ruby, **and** draw and throw the cards in under a second. Not to mention she had just incapacitated a massive Grimm in the same amount of time.

"Aren't you gonna grab your relic?" Chess looked pointedly at Ruby and Jaune. They nodded, still partly in shock, and moved to the temple. Jaune grabbed the white rook, while Ruby grabbed the white knight. Chessur's grin widened to inhuman proportions.

"Oh wow, how do you do that?!" Nora asked excitedly, drawing everyone's attention to the girl's mad, impossibly wide grin.

"My little secret, chatterbox." Chess said with a wink to the seemingly very excitable Nora. However, after that statement the orange-haired girl looked a little deflated. Chess just continued while everyone's attention was on her. "We should get to the cliffs you know. I don't mind staying out here and killing all these beautiful and deadly enemies, but we do need to pass initiation to stay in the school..."

They all nodded in agreement, and headed toward the cliff, Ruby taking the lead.

As they got to a ruined castle-type structure at the base of the cliff, the Nevermore took purchase on top of the only standing tower and proceeded to send feathers flying towards them. After getting Nora to distract it, they all made a run for the bridge.

However, the Nevermore had other plans. Smashing into the bridge, it separated the group, with Ren, Blake, Pyrrha and Chess fighting the Deathstalker, which had broken free and pursued them. The rest were on the opposite side of the broken bridge trying to take down the Nevermore.

Suddenly Jaune and Nora came flying over the bridge, with Nora smacking the Deathstalker in the face with a giant warhammer. If Chessur hadn't already seen Ruby's scythe, she would've thought the hammer was huge.

The side effect of Nora smacking the scorpion was that she got knocked back, sending Blake flying off the bridge. Chess decided she wanted to take down the Nevermore, and it was probably best to help out her future team-mate. She evaporated down to Blake, grabbed her confused and shocked face in between 2 hands, and evaporated them both to the top of the tower along with the sisters and the heiress. Together they tried to take down the giant bird with pure force, but that failed and the Grimm just destroyed the tower.

Evaporating back to solid ground, Ruby explained how she had a plan. It was brilliant, and utterly mad.

Chess couldn't have made a better one herself.

* * *

The Nevermore's tail was frozen to the top of the building, the ribbon was prepared, and Ruby was preparing to charge. Luckily, Chess noticed the ice breaking, and decided to help. She prepared a four of a kind in each hand, throwing each set at a wing of the bird.

The cards stuck through the wings and the gravity Dust in them activated, pinning the Nevermore more securely against the cliff. Ruby then shot forward, hooked the blade of the scythe around the creature's neck, and ran up the side of the cliff using Weiss' glyphs. Screaming the entire way, she got to the top and decapitated the Nevermore, rose petals flying everywhere around her. Suddenly Chess appeared next to her, and was smiling warmly at her, not the mad grin everyone was beginning to get used to.

"Well done, Ruby. One hell of a plan, from one hell of a girl." Chess threw in a wink.

Ruby blushed madly at that, stuttering out a 'thank you' before remembering they were supposed to get the others up. They also noticed that the others had managed to take out the Deathstalker. Chess ended up simply evaporating everyone up, although not without complaint. Everyone said the same thing, that it felt weird. Ren said it felt like they'd put one foot into the land of madness. Chess smiled knowingly upon hearing this.

Either way, they all headed towards the waiting professors.

* * *

"Russel Thrush, Cardin Winchester, Dove Bronzewing, Sky Lark. The four of you retrieved the black bishop pieces. From this day forward, you will work together as... Team CRDL (Cardinal), led by... Cardin Winchester." The crowd started clapping.

As they stepped off the stage, the next team stood forward and Ozpin presented them.

"Jaune Arc, Lie Ren, Pyrrha Nikos, Nora Valkyrie. The four of you retrieved the white rook pieces. From this day forward, you will work together as... Team JNPR (Juniper)." Nora almost tackled Ren with the force of the hug she gave him. Ozpin wasn't finished, "Led by... Jaune Arc."

The boy looked stunned, and so when Pyrrha playfully punched him on the shoulder, he fell down, much to his embarrassment. Ozpin offered his opinion, "Congratulations, young man."

As they walked off the stage, Ruby, Yang, Weiss and Blake walked forward. Chess had the feeling Ozpin wanted her to wait for his cue, and she hadn't told anyone what piece she had collected. She was technically the only one without a partner, but she didn't care that much.

"And finally... Blake Belladonna, Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, and Yang Xaio Long. The four of you retrieved the white knight pieces." Ozpin paused. "However, due to an odd number of students, one other collected another white knight. This girl has no partner, but will nonetheless be among you as a team-mate. Chessur, please walk forward." The hall was filled with whispers and her new team-mates seemed in shock as she evaporated next to Yang, appearing on the end of the line with the biggest grin on her face. Everyone aside from Ozpin decided simultaneously in their minds that the girl looked demented with the grin and her outfit. Ozpin continued his speech, while the girl's new team failed to notice the lack of last name in their state of shock.

"From this day forward, you will work together as... Team RWBYC (Rubies), led by... Ruby Rose."

Yang snapped out of her shock and hugged Ruby instantly, shouting to be heard over the hall clapping.

"I'm so proud of you!" Ruby seemed to be uncomfortable at the praise.

Ozpin made a final remark before the students disbanded and left the hall.

"Looks like things are shaping up to be an... interesting year."

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

 **Well, there you have it! Act I of Lady Luck. I'm working on Act II, so rest assured that'll come soon-ish. I hope you enjoyed, feel free to leave a review or PM any questions. Note, if it's about the character then I probably will tell you to wait, as more is revealed in Act II.**


	6. Chapter 6 - Misfortune vs Miss Fortune

**Lady Luck  
Act II - The Lucky Lady  
**

Of course Ozpin knew who she was. He had seemingly mysterious ways of finding these things out. However, Chess was 99.7% sure nobody else knew. So the only reason she would be called to Ozpin's office without her team - right after the assignment of teams, no less - would be to talk about her identity.

She stepped out of the elevator, almost seeming to glide across the floor. It was almost like she was floating instead of using her own 2 feet. Ozpin noticed this was false, her gait was just extremely graceful. _Silent, as well_ , the headmaster picked up.

As Chess walked into the room, something felt off. It was as though something was missing. Like she had suddenly stopped hearing her heartbeat, but... different. Chessur quickly lost her ever-present grin, frowning in front of Ozpin for the first time. She shook her head, trying to shake the feeling, but something was definitely wrong.

"Professor, what is this? What's happening?" Ozpin was genuinely confused, so he raised an eyebrow in question. Suddenly, before he could blink, the girl twisted in place, a royal flush in each hand, cards glowing a myriad of colours.

"GET. OUT." She said to Ozpin, looking at an area of the office covered in shadows.

In response to this, Qrow stepped out of the shadows, flask in hand.

"Not until you answer our questions, kid. How'd you know?" Chessur's response shocked Qrow.

"I could feel it. Feel you. You're **wrong**. You're like me, you shouldn't exist. An abomination, a freak."

Qrow slowly drew his weapon in sword form, while Ozpin simply watched, intrigued.

"What are you?" Qrow questioned, his voice deadly serious.

"I'm you, and your opposite. The light to your dark. The saviour to your blight. You affect others, while I affect only me. I'm what should never be, just like you..." Her grin appeared, but this time it didn't reach her eyes. This time it was a deadly grin. She continued with a statement that almost made Qrow have a heart attack, and Ozpin actually widened his eyes in surprise.

"Why, isn't it obvious? I'm the **luck** to your **misfortune**."

* * *

" **What.** "

Qrow looked at Chess and his eye started twitching. Ozpin quickly decided to step in before this got out of hand.

"Qrow. I think it would be best if you leave."

In response to the deathly glare that his friend then gave him, Ozpin simply sent a steely gaze that said he was not to be trifled with. Qrow took one last look at the steampunk-themed girl, and stomped away without another word. His knuckles were visibly white while he stalked away, still clutching his weapon in a death grip.

 _He's probably going to smash something or kill someone_ , Chessur thought.

"Miss Chessur. I take it this is why you are called 'Lady Luck'?" After Chess simply nodded, a sly smile on her face in place of the mad grin so often seen, Ozpin continued. "You don't seem very surprised by the fact I know your other identity."

"You have ways of finding things out, I'm sure. Not to mention you being older than you look. A **lot** older. But the body is still young... Curious." Chessur's mad grin returned. Ozpin could do nothing but sit there in shock. How had she...? It didn't matter. If she could sense Qrow's misfortune then she could probably sense the very old Aura of the headmaster. Ozpin shook his head slightly to clear his head as he continued.

"Indeed. Now, I need to make sure that no enemies you may have made during your days as 'Lady Luck' will attempt to harm my students. If they do intend to, I will expect you to take care of the problem." As Chessur started nodding, Ozpin felt he needed to clarify, " **Without** killing them."

Chess stopped nodding for a second, taken aback, but started nodding again with a gleam in her eyes. This was not going to end well for someone. Chess may have been told not to kill, but he feared what she might do instead. Shaking his head slightly, he motioned in a manner that indicated the meeting was finished. Once he did, he saw Chessur evaporate before his very eyes, leaving only the eyes and the grin for a second before they too disappeared into a mist. After the mist itself had seemingly evaporated, the headmaster chuckled.

"Cheshire Cat indeed... and just as mad."

Suddenly a ghostly voice rang through Ozpin's office, fading with each word.

"We're all mad here..."

The headmaster simply sat there raising an eyebrow, while a slightly maniacal giggling rang softly throughout the office before fading away completely.

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

 **And that's why she's called 'Lady Luck'. There are limits to her 'luck' but in most cases the small things go her way. She'll always call a coin flip correctly, always roll just the right number on dice. In a fight, something which might have hindered her, doesn't. Imagine, if you will, Qrow's fight in Volume 4 Chapter 7.**

 *** SPOILER WARNING***

 **When the beam falls onto where Ruby's standing (before Qrow jumps in and saves her) - imagine Chess in her place. Her luck would mean the beam wouldn't have fallen - or even if it had, it wouldn't have hit her.**

 *** END SPOILER***

 **Sorry for the short chapter, I just didn't really know what else to put here. I knew how this was going to go down, and only once I looked back did I realise how short it was. Oh well, the next chapter's a bit longer anyway.**

 **For Act II, Chapters will be released on Saturdays and Wednesdays. Like Act I, Act II will have 5 chapters.**

 **As always, feel free to leave a review or PM any questions.**

 **P.S. It's currently technically Saturday, even if it's 4 in the morning, so I thought I'd treat y'all and release it now instead of later today. You're welcome.**


	7. Chapter 7 - The Badge and The Burden

The next morning, Chess decided to see what her team was doing. She had slept the night away in one of her apartments in Vale, enjoying her last night before school officially began.

As such, come morning Chess evaporated back into RWBYC's dorms to find the room decorated with personal possessions, and the 4 beds in a heap in the centre of the room. Ruby and her team all jumped at the appearance of their strange teammate, but soon went back to the problem at hand.

"Hmm. Seems there's a tad bit of a problem." Chess tittered, using her evaporating skills to literally float above the mess of beds while everyone stared in amazement. Ruby was the one to voice the thought running through the rest of the team's minds.

"How are you doing that? I didn't know you could float! That's... SO FREAKING COOL!"

Chess smiled softly at Ruby, forgoing the usual mad grin. _The girl is unusually adorable..._

"I can evaporate, appearing anywhere at will, and yet you're surprised I can float?" Chess let out a giggle. "Never change, little Rose."

Ruby blushed while the rest of the team went about figuring out what to do with the sleeping arrangements. Soon enough, they decided on bunk beds. Soon after making them, however, they realised the glaring problem. Blake was the one to point it out.

"Uh, guys... we only have 4 beds. There are 5 of us."

Weiss, Yang and Ruby froze, obviously not having realised this, while Chess hovered near the light, chuckling at something on her scroll. Once Blake finished speaking, they all looked up as Chessur began to talk.

"My, my, run into a snag, have we? Oh well. I have no qualms about sleeping with someone. However, there may be problems with that solution. Ruby would mean Yang trying to kill me, Blake is too withdrawn, Ice Queen-"

"Hey!"

"-is too frigid, and I'm not remotely interested in sharing with Yang."

"Oh come on, I'm not that bad!" Came the blonde's reply.

"That means that I can't realistically share with any of you. Now, I could do 1 of 2 things. I could share with Ruby and take my chances..." Yang proceeded to give Chess a death glare, which was met by a wide grin. "Or, I could simply make a hammock. Oh, wait..."

Chess pointed above the doorway, and the team was shocked to find a hammock already strung up near the ceiling.

"How did you...?" Yang sounded as confused as the rest of the team felt.

"I have my ways..." Chess wore a massive grin that shouldn't have been humanly possible, stretching almost literally from ear to ear. It was extremely unsettling.

"Well, anyway! Objective, complete!" Ruby said proudly. "Alright, our second order of business iiiiisss..." Ruby slumped on her bed, a book on her lap as she finished dejectedly, "Classes."

Chess tittered above them, still paying attention to whatever was on her scroll. Ruby continued regardless.

"Now, we have a few classes together today. At 9:00 we've gotta be-"

"WHAT?! Did you say 9 o'clock?! It's 8:55 you dunce!" With this, Weiss ran out of the room.

"U-uh, t-to class!" Ruby yelled, and immediately Yang and Blake vanished from the room, followed by team JNPR.

Ruby paused in the doorway before running after them, looking up to the 5th member of their team, still in her hammock on her scroll.

"Uh, Chess? You coming?"

Chessur looked down on the girl, noting that even in her uniform she kept her cloak on. As she chuckled, she evaporated next to Ruby, causing the girl to jump.

"Looks like **someone** forgot about my semblance, hm? Run along now, little Rose, or **you'll** be late." Chess gave Ruby a small smile, bopping her on the nose before evaporating once more.

Ruby stood in shock for a moment, one hand coming up to touch her nose, before it clicked what the steampunk girl had said.

"Oh no!" Ruby used her semblance and rushed off, a trail of rose petals appearing behind her. Unnoticed by the speeding teen, a hand seemingly popped out of thin air and grabbed one of the rose petals before it could disappear, before vanishing into mist once more.

* * *

 _Dear god, this man is boring._

Chess was just about ready to go on a murder spree from being so bored. Peter Port. The man knew how to exaggerate like there was no tomorrow.

 _Yes, because we would **so** believe you managed to fight off 8 King Taijitu and 17 Nevermores with only a shoe as your weapon._

As team RWBYC sat and listened to him telling his tale, Chess glanced over to see Ruby doodling on a piece of paper. It made sense, as there was no point taking notes for a story their teacher was clearly exaggerating. However, when Ruby held up the paper to show her team Chess had to suppress a giggle.

As Ruby showed off her 'art' of the so-called 'Professor Poop', Yang was not as successful as Chess in containing her laugh. The teacher noticed, and Port cleared his throat to get their attention, and as a warning. Straightening, the team listened to Port finish his tale, and begin to explain the purpose of the story.

"A true Huntsman must be honourable..."

At this part, Ruby was making a face while balancing a book and an apple on top of a pencil, an admirable feat by Chess' standards.

"A true Huntsman must be dependable..."

Now Ruby had apparently fallen asleep. Chess thought she must be faking, but still wasn't completely sure.

"A true Huntsman must be strategic, well educated, and wise. So, who among you believes themselves to be the embodiment of these traits?"

As he said this, Ruby was apparently awake again and picking her nose. Even Chess was amazed at how much she had managed to do in the space of 5 seconds. _Must be due to her semblance...?_ Weiss obviously did not agree, as she was **literally** shaking with rage.

"I do, sir!" She cried, raising her hand.

At this, Chess simply snickered, rolling her eyes. At this, she folded her own drawing into a paper plane and sent it flying behind Weiss into Ruby, who was leaning back in her seat. _Lucky me_ , Chess thought with a sly grin.

Ruby opened the piece of paper to find a drawing of an ice cube with a crown on top, with an arrow pointing to the title. Ruby couldn't contain a snicker as she gazed upon the work of art.

The work of art titled 'Ice Queen'.

As Weiss looked over Ruby's shoulder at the art, she began to glare daggers into Chess. The steampunk girl merely giggled as Professor Port invited Weiss to face a Grimm he had in a cage. Judging by the size, either a Creep or a Boarbatusk.

Weiss went to the bathroom and got changed into her combat gear, bringing Myrtenaster with her.

As the rest of the team cheered on their white-clad teammate, Chess noticed Weiss criticising Ruby, and not Blake or Yang. Noticing this, Chessur frowned, causing mixed reaction among the team. Weiss was too busy paying attention to the Grimm about to be unleashed, Blake looked terrified, and Yang looked rather uneasy. None of them had seen her without a grin on her face.

Only Ruby looked at Chess without any fear or uneasiness. Ruby simply wanted to know if the steampunk girl was okay.

Before she could ask, however, Port unleashed the Boarbatusk from the cage. As Weiss dodged, and Port bragged, Ruby continued to cheer for her teammate - despite the earlier criticism. As Weiss got her weapon stuck in the Boarbatusk's tusks, Ruby encouraged her, only for the weapon to get flung away by the Grimm. As Port continued to commentate and the match continued, Chess watched with little interest.

"Weiss, go for its belly! There's no armour underneath-" Ruby attempted to help their teammate out, only to be cut off by the heiress.

"Stop telling me what to do!"

At this, Ruby seemed downtrodden, and Yang and Blake both noticed something which terrified them to the core.

Chess was scowling at Weiss. _This is unacceptable. I'm ever so slightly psychopathic, but she's just a bitch. I may need to teach her a lesson._

As the Boarbatusk did a spinning attack that reminded Chess of a video game of some kind, the heiress threw up a glyph to stop it, ultimately taking Ruby's advice and plunging Myrtenaster through the Grimm's belly.

Soon after, Port announced the end of the class, and as they filed out, Chess quickly evaporated to attend to her own business.

 _Maybe it's time the Ice Queen got a little Karmic Retribution._

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

 **I know I'm a day late, but I was busy. To make it up, I'll post the next chapter tomorrow, a day _early_. **

**Anyway, hope you enjoy. Feel free to review, PM any questions. Also, if you have any ideas about how you want some events to happen, or if you want new events put in, PM me the ideas and I'll see what I can do about putting them in.**


	8. Chapter 8 - Ice Queen

**Author's Note:**

 **In response to TheRealCactoos' review: Don't be sorry.**

 **1: I love Undertale and 2: Chess has a unique quirk in that she can break the 4th wall. However, unlike Deadpool, she does it unconsciously.**

 **Take the Boarbatusk attack last chapter. She was reminded of 'a video game of some kind'. She doesn't know what Sonic is, because it doesn't exist on Remnant. However, that didn't stop her being reminded of it. Same with the remark about Karmic Retribution. She doesn't know (or care) where the thoughts originate from, just that they appear.**

 **...Or, maybe that's just an excuse for me to put in a shitload of references. Who knows? ;)**

* * *

It was the evening after Professor Port's class, and Weiss had decided to train. Making sure one of the training rooms was free, she thought on her discussion with Professor Port. _Maybe he is right. Maybe I should just trust the headmaster... and maybe be nicer to Ruby..._

As she entered the training hall, she stopped after a few steps to see a blue glow coming from the floor of the training room. Looking down, she found she was surrounded by hundreds of playing cards, all glowing blue. As she turned back to exit the room, more playing cards suddenly blanketed the floor between her and the door. Then, more floated down - from seemingly nowhere - to hang over the door like a curtain.

Nervous, Weiss pulled out her scroll only for a voice to ring out.

"I wouldn't do that just yet, Ice Queen..."

Weiss looked up to see Chess floating above her, a deadly grin on her face. Weiss was suddenly very afraid, but pushed down the fear.

"Wha- What is this?! How dare you-?!"

She was interrupted by Chess tittering as she appeared next to the heiress, floating above the playing cards still littering the floor.

"Do you know what these are? These are cards, infused with ice Dust. You step on 1 of these, and you'll be encased in ice. Ice for the Ice Queen, isn't that fitting?"

Upon Weiss failing to answer, Chessur continued.

"Maybe a situation wouldn't have come about like this if you managed to make fewer enemies. One makes fewer enemies by being nicer to people."

Weiss, still pushing down her fear, raised an eyebrow without answering.

"You know, I do so adore the colour red. Not to mention my favourite flowers are roses." Understanding began to dawn in Weiss' eyes. "So it would be productive to be particularly nice to those 2 things..."

Chess appeared directly in front of the heiress' face, causing Weiss to lean back in shock.

"Or else one might make an enemy of me."

Weiss couldn't do anything but nod.

At that, the steampunk girl's mad grin returned, and all the cards suddenly flocked towards her, vanishing into her sleeves before she evaporated.

"Ta-ta, Ice Queen..." The voice echoed through the room.

Weiss was left in an empty training room, suddenly not feeling like training any more.

* * *

After the confrontation, Chess evaporated back into their room and watched the little Rose study. As night came, and Ruby fell asleep while studying, Chess simply smiled softly and waited for the inevitable return of the Ice Queen. As Weiss walked in and woke Ruby, the conversation between the 2 seemed to fix things, at least slightly. Chess smiled softly, unseen in her hammock as Weiss gave Ruby a cup of coffee and left, with the younger girl going back to studying.

 _Ah, little Rose. You certainly are different. It's extraordinarily cute._

Chessur's grin suddenly slipped a little. _Where was this line of thought going? That doesn't seem much like me. Hm..._

 _Ah well, might as well help Ruby out._

"Need some help, little Rose?" Chess murmured in Ruby's ear as she evaporated next to the girl.

Ruby squeaked as she almost fell off the bed, only to be caught by a chuckling Chess.

"Ch-Chess! Don't do that!" Ruby whisper-yelled, while Chess was struggling not to burst out laughing. _Wow, that was hilarious._

"Sorry, little Rose. Well, do you need some help? I'd be more than happy to lend my assistance..." Chess winked at Ruby.

"U-uh, yeah, thanks! I... could use the help. I kinda skipped ahead 2 years, so some of this is way ahead of me... Hey, that reminds me: how old are you? I can't tell..."

Chess chuckled, and debated internally whether to tell Ruby how old she actually was. _Hm, it couldn't hurt..._

"I'm 15."

Ruby's eyes widened in astonishment.

"No way! That's how old I am! But how did you get into Beacon?"

Chess decided to tell her.

"Some guy named Torchwick tried to rob a Dust store, and I stopped it. Then Miss Goodwitch stopped me from leaving and told me I was in trouble, before Ozpin came in and offered me a place at Beacon. I had nothing better to do, so I accepted."

Chess had thought Ruby couldn't get more astonished, but she was clearly wrong, as the other girl's eyes seemed to bug out of her head at this revelation.

"That's exactly how I got in..." Ruby whispered in shock.

At this, Chessur's eyebrows shot up. The same method of getting in, the same age? That could not be coincidence. Yes, Chessur's semblance gave her luck, but this was ludicrous. There was no way this could boil down to simple luck. Right?

 _Did you plan this, Ozpin?_

Staring at the slightly shell-shocked Ruby, Chess couldn't help but feel protective over the girl. _No, it's not that... It's something else. Hm, I need to think on this..._

Meanwhile, Ruby had snapped out of it, and was studying again, with Chess watching her do so. For the rest of the night, Chess offered advice on a few of the questions she knew, and some she didn't. After all, her luck helped when guessing answers on tests or homework. Soon enough, Ruby was starting to fall asleep again. Once she was safely in the land of dreams, Chess tidied Ruby's papers and books, stacking them neatly on her desk. Once she had tucked in her studying partner, Chess floated up to her own hammock, still in her steampunk gear and top hat, and promptly went to sleep.

Her dreams were filled with rose petals.


	9. Chapter 9 - Lunchtime Lunacy

_Wow, this fight is more one-sided than playing Blackjack against_ _ **me**_ _._

Chess didn't lose her mad grin as she watched Jaune Arc get pummelled, only when the teacher ended the match. As much as the steampunk girl would've liked to have seen what would've happened next, these were spars, and so red-level Aura meant the match was over.

As the teacher moved on to the announcement about the Vytal festival, Chess smiled. A chance to test her skills against the best from other kingdoms? No way she was going to pass that up.

As the bell rang, Chess noticed the blonde boy still sitting on the stage with his head between his knees, and the fact that his partner was looking at him with a worried expression.

 _Hm. Well, at least somebody plans on helping. Would be a shame if he never got better, he looks like he has potential._

* * *

A few minutes later, teams RWBYC and JNPR were sitting at the cafeteria tables, listening intently as Nora recounted what was doubtless an exaggeration of one of her dreams.

Chess, however, was wide-eyed, following every twist in the tale as the story unfolded. Gasping at appropriate moments, her teammates kept looking at her strangely. They had never seen her so... animated. It was highly disturbing.

Ren kept correcting Nora's story as she told it, but nobody paid attention to him. In fact, only Yang and Chess seemed to be paying attention to the tale at all. Jaune was distracted, Blake was reading, Weiss was filing her nails, and Ruby and Pyrrha both looked too worried about Jaune to be paying attention.

"...and made a boatload of Lien selling Ursa skin rugs!" Nora finished proudly.

"Did you at least keep one as a pet?" Chess asked. Nora gasped.

"No! How did I not think of that! Ren! Next time we have to keep one!" She gasped again. "OH! WE COULD NAME IT MISTER MITTENS!" By this point several students looked their way before seeing it was only Nora.

Ren simply looked at Chess, shaking his head, before stating his opinion.

"You're a bad influence on my partner..." He couldn't help but smile as he said it, though."She's been having this recurring dream for nearly a **month** , now."

"Jaune? Are you okay?" The table heard Pyrrha ask.

"Huh? Oh! Yeah, why?" Jaune still looked a little out of it.

"It's just that... you seem a little... **not** okay." Ruby twisted her hands together as she said it, clearly worried.

"Yeah, a 'little' not okay." Chess interrupted, putting her fingers in air quotes when saying 'little'. She had a mad grin on her face, as per usual.

"Guys, I'm fine! See?" He gave a thumbs up and the most unconvincing laugh ever. Of all time.

All Chess did was change the grin to a sly smile and raise one eyebrow.

"Jaune, Cardin has been picking on you since the first week of school." Pyrrha sounded slightly angry.

"Who, Cardin Winchester? Naw, he just likes to mess around, you know. Practical jokes." Jaune continued to defend the brute.

"He's a bully." Even Ruby was sounding slightly angry now. This caused Chessur's grin to dip ever so slightly, though Weiss was the only one to notice. This caused the white-haired girl to gulp, though not audibly.

"Oh please. Name one time he's 'bullied' me." Jaune borrowed a trick from Chess, using the air quotes for 'bullied'. The entire table, minus Chess, then proceeded to rattle off time after time of Cardin bullying Jaune.

"I didn't land far from the school..." Jaune weakly tried.

"Jaune, you know if you ever need help you can just ask." Pyrrha tried making him see sense, before Nora interrupted with her own idea.

"OOH! We'll break his legs!" Chess smiled at this, and had to have her own input.

"Why stop there...? There's a lot more of his body we can break without killing him... Or we could break his mind..." Everyone at the table was suddenly **extremely** uncomfortable with the deadly grin on Chessur's face, except Nora. Nora seemed to actually be considering it, before she decided.

"Nah, that's just overkill. Just his legs will do."

 _You call it overkill, I call it eliminating an annoyance._ Chess thought there was no way just breaking his legs would ward him off.

"Ow, that hurts!" Their attention was captured by a girl with rabbit ears yelling. The ears were being pulled on by Cardin. "Please stop..."

The entire table looked disgusted at this act of bullying. Ruby seemed to be both disgusted and angry at the display.

Everyone at the table suddenly felt the temperature drop a few degrees; that was the only explanation they could think of for the shiver that just went down all their backs.

That was, until they looked at Chess.

Chess was wearing an expression of such fury that everyone at the table, barring Ruby, instantly wanted to run away. Ruby simply wanted to calm her friend down. However, before anyone could do anything, she was gone, evaporating right next to Cardin.

The bully didn't even notice her for a few seconds. She had a grin on her face, but this wasn't the carefree one that her team had gotten used to. This was a grin that promised pain. Cardin finally noticed her when she spoke, but the voice that came out of her didn't seem like hers. In reality, only 4 people alive had ever heard that voice, and they were all survivors of the club who tried to attack her. It was a voice that promised pain, and a fate worse than death.

 **"Are you deaf, or just stupid? Actually, never mind. I know the answer."**

Cardin turned to her, annoyed.

"Mind your own business. What do you care what happens to the fre-"

His words were interrupted as a small tornado of cards smashed into his chest, throwing him into the wall while Velvet wisely chose this moment to run away. Such was the force of the cards, and the numbers, that it almost instantly broke Cardin's Aura. Chess was left standing there, her arm out as the cards, which now pinned the bully to the wall, began to glow a myriad of colours. She looked up to see the boy's Aura gone and several of the cards embedded into his armour, and a few into the flesh of his arms and legs.

 _Good. That'll make this easier._

 **"If there's one thing I hate,"** Chess continued talking as she slowly walked towards the Winchester pinned to the wall, the crowds of students instantly making a path for her, **"It's people like you. People who delude themselves into thinking they have power, just because there's someone not as strong as them. But you don't have power. You never did. Even if you somehow managed to gain a hold of real, ACTUAL power? You wouldn't have the slightest idea what to do with it. Could you hold someone else's life in your hands? Could you actually kill someone, looking into their eyes as the light fades from them? No. Because you are weak. You. Are. Pathetic."** Chess stopped and laughed madly for a solid 10 seconds.

 **"That's my number 1 hate. But do you wanna know what number 2 is?"** Cardin had stopped struggling and now just stared in fear, as she raised her hand and many more cards floated out of her sleeve to all point at Cardin.

 **"My number 2 hate... is racists."** Chess grinned that mad, deadly grin, which literally stretched from ear to ear, as she raised her hand.

Then she moved her hand forward, and all the cards flew at Cardin Winchester's face.


	10. Chapter 10 - Lucky Little Rose

The entire cafeteria watched on as about 100 playing cards all stopped less than an inch from a figure. It was not the figure they had been intended for. Instead, it was the figure who had jumped in front of Cardin to save him.

 **"Ruby. Move."**

The silver-eyed girl stayed in front of Cardin Winchester, who was still pinned and looking every bit as amazed as the rest of the cafeteria. However, she stared into Chessur's eyes with an intensity that was slowly wearing away the steampunk girl's resolve.

"Nope." Such a simple statement, yet it caused Chessur's voice to go back to normal, which usually only happened when everybody who had made her furious was dead.

"Ruby, please. Move. I'm going to finish this."

"Nope."

"...Why?" The steampunk girl was almost whispering now, not wanting to hurt Ruby, but unable to understand why she was standing in the way.

"This isn't you, Chess. Not the real you. You're just angry. I like the Chess who laughs weirdly and insults Weiss, who helps me with homework... and when that Chess smiles, it's actually nice."

Chess was hanging her head as she listened to Ruby explain, only to fall to her knees once the other girl stopped talking. She let her trembling hand fall, and the cards brought themselves back to her sleeves, even the ones embedded in Cardin's armour and limbs.

Ruby lifted Chessur's head as she stared into the green eyes (or were they light blue? None of the team had been able to figure it out). As Ruby stared at the steampunk girl, she couldn't help but wonder once more how that hat managed to stay on, no matter the angle of her head.

"I'm sorry..." Chess managed to get out, a sorrowful look on her face, and what might've been tears in her eyes... Only to find Ruby already hugging her.

"I forgive you. Just don't do that. Don't scare me like that again, okay?"

"...Okay."

In the meanwhile, Cardin's team had grabbed him and rushed to the infirmary, with many students leaving the hall, put off their appetites by the near-death of one of their comrades (even if he **was** an asshole).

"Miss Chessur." A **very** angry voice sounded out.

Ruby looked up to see Ozpin and the rest of team RWBYC standing a few metres away, looking at them.

Beside them was a **extremely** furious Glynda Goodwitch.

It appeared the rest of the team had gone to fetch the nearest faculty members, and had found Ozpin and Miss Goodwitch. Ruby could make out team JNPR behind them, although they appeared to be keeping a distance from the girl in the top hat.

Chess still hadn't looked up, her hat angled to obscure her face, so Miss Goodwitch went to call her name again, only to watch as both Chess and Ruby evaporated in an instant. Even Ozpin raised an eyebrow, though he suspected she might want some time to try and control her darker side. He **was** mildly surprised she had taken Ruby with her, but judging from the fact young Miss Rose was the one who had managed to calm her down, it was probably for the best.

As such, he held up a hand when Glynda's eye started to twitch, and told her to let them go.

* * *

Ruby gasped, then shivered. The evaporation thing still felt really weird. They had appeared in... well, Ruby wasn't exactly sure where they were. It was some sort of small apartment, so it was probably in Vale, but looking out the window didn't garner any results as to where they were. Ruby simply hadn't been in Vale long enough to know her way around the entire city.

Looking back to Chess, Ruby instantly took note of the fact that her grin was missing. In its place was an expression that spoke of bitterness, of struggle. Ruby instantly went up and hugged the steampunk girl, who had been making her way to the kitchen. Chessur's face morphed, and instead of a sad, bitter expression, it became a smile. A sad smile, but still a smile. Plus, her expression told the little Rose that she was thankful for the hug.

 _God, now I know what that feeling is. Maybe that makes it worse, maybe better. Who knows, not like I've ever had to deal with this before._ Chess wasn't sure what to make of the emotion.

Chess continued to make her way to the kitchen, and immediately pulled out an exceedingly large mug. She turned on the coffee maker, and went to the fridge, pulling out milk and cream. She tried to get her thoughts in order, she really did...

Before she decided that it simply wasn't worth the trouble of doing without a little help from her friend Jack.

So as she made her coffee, she only filled the mug halfway, pulling out another cup and making Ruby coffee while Ruby was exploring the small apartment. Not much to see, 1 bedroom and 1 bathroom. The girl in question walked in just as Chess placed the cream and 5 sugars into the coffee.

"How did you know how I like my coffee?" Ruby asked from the doorway, sounding playfully suspicious.

"I sleep in the same room as you, little Rose. I overheard you tell Weiss." Chessur's voice was slightly exasperated.

"Oh. Yeah, that makes sense, I guess." Ruby rubbed the back of her head sheepishly before sitting at the small table in the middle of the mildly large kitchen/dining room. As Chess handed her the coffee, Ruby didn't notice as Chess pulled out a large bottle from one of the top cupboards, floating to reach that high.

The only reason she noticed Chess was pouring a massive amount of whiskey into her coffee was that the girl in question accidentally _clink_ ed the bottle against the mug.

"OH MY GOD! CHESS! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Ruby sounded beyond alarmed, while Chess just stared at her in confusion. Chess genuinely didn't understand why her guest was so alarmed by a bottle of J.D.

"Drinking...?" Chess tentatively said.

Before the steampunk girl could blink, the whiskey was snatched from her hands. Ruby was standing a few metres away, holding it as though it was diseased or something. Chess shrugged, she'd already put about a third of the bottle into her mug already. This in mind, she then proceeded to skull the entire mug with Ruby watching on in horror, only taking 2 breaks to breathe. Once she had placed the mug down, she could already feel the buzz coming on. She knew it wouldn't be long before she was full-blown wasted - she had never had much of a tolerance.

Ruby simply placed the bottle on the counter and practically flew into Chess, hugging her. As they were literally launched to the couch, Chess was surprised, and hugged her back - albeit not knowing why the hug was happening.

"You don't have to. You don't have to drink any more. You have a team, and we will always be here for you. **I** will always be here for you." Chessur's shoulder muffled the words Ruby was speaking, but they were heard nonetheless. They were sitting on the couch, side by side, but with Ruby still hugging her.

"Ya know lil' Rose, ya miiight not wanna say that sorta stuff. Might give people the wrong idea." Chess giggled. She was already halfway to being completely wasted. A few more minutes and she'd be out of it.

"W-w-well, I mean... I... mmmfmfmfm..." The last part of Ruby's sentence was muffled as she buried her head into Chessur's shoulder, hugging the girl once more.

 _Wow, I must be lucky to get so many hugs. Heh. Heheheheheh. Luck._

Ruby was looking at her strangely as she pulled away from the hug. Had she said that part out loud? Ah, it didn't matter.

Ruby looked like she was trying to say something, but struggling. Her hands kept fidgeting in her lap. She kept blushing every time she looked at Chess, and then looking away before actually saying anything.

 _Wait... No way... It couldn't... Could it...?_

Chessur's alcohol-addled mind was struggling to function, but by the way Ruby was acting, even Jaune couldn't have missed it.

 _Oh my god... She actually does_ _ **like**_ _me. I wonder... Will she actually say yes if I ask her out? I mean, I only just figured out that the emotion I was feeling was_ _ **liking**_ _her, but I've felt that way for a while... I wonder if she'll say yes..._

"Ruby. Ruby, Ruby, Ruby. I think I know what you're gonna say." Ruby's eyes widened, only confirming the steampunk girl's thoughts. "Do you... **like** me? As in, romantically like, not platonic like."

Ruby instantly went the same colour as her namesake, blushing profusely and looking like she would explode. However, she didn't deny it. In fact, after a solid 10 seconds, she nodded once.

"Wellllll then. I propose we go get ice cream and cookies this Saturday... As a date." Ruby looked like she might be about to faint, so Chess elaborated. "I've maaaaaaaaybe sorta liked you for a while, but only just figured out it was actually liking you that I was feeling, ya know?" Ruby still looked like she was going to either explode from happiness or faint from shock, so Chess did the only thing her drunk mind could come up with.

She lunged forward and locked lips with Ruby Rose.

The kiss was messy, and sloppy, but Chess put all her passion and emotions into her first kiss. After she got over the shock of being kissed for the first time, Ruby did the same. Soon enough, they parted for air, but it didn't last long. They continued to make out on Chessur's couch for a while, neither of them caring that it was the middle of the day and they were supposed to be in school.

Soon enough, they simply lay there, Ruby lying on top of her new girlfriend. She looked up to see Chessur's eyes with such a soft expression in them that Ruby was lost for words.

After finding her brain again, Ruby needed to know something.

"H-Hey Chess..."

"Mm?"

"How long have you... How long have you liked me?

"Hmm... I dunnooo..." Chess was slurring, the alcohol having fully hit her by this point. "Probbly since the first dayyy? I thought you were so adoooooorable the wayy you asked how I was floating."

Ruby giggled at the memory, then laid back down, before starting to speak.

"I don't think I knew I liked you either, until... Until you tried to kill Cardin. I knew I couldn't let you do something which you would regret later. I knew you cared about me, I'd noticed how you'd pay special attention to me, so I knew I was the only one you'd stop for." Ruby smiled to herself. "I'm glad you stopped."

"Mm. Me toooo lil Rooooose..." Chessur's voice trailed off, and Ruby looked up to see her eyes closed. Ruby shrugged, and closed her eyes as well.

Ruby and Chess fell asleep on the couch, each dreaming of the other.

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

 **For those who might be confused: It's been several weeks since the start of school in these last 2 chapters, I just couldn't be bothered to detail every single day of the few weeks.**

 **Also, you may be wondering where Chessur's madness went in regards to Ruby. Rest assured, she is just as loony as ever. However, upon realising she likes Ruby, she becomes mildly obsessive - not enough to drive Ruby away, but enough to make others wary of her, and wary of messing with good ol' Rubes. The only person she isn't her 'weird self' around is Ruby, who she is somewhat more normal around. **

**The rest of the time she's still... mad as a Hatter.**

 **Heh... get it? Eh? Anyone?**

 **Okay, I'm sorry, I'll leave now.  
(Although keep in mind... The hat is important. Seriously. How it stays on is very important.)**

 **As always, feel free to review with constructive criticism and polite suggestions, and PM any questions. Act III will come... soon...ish. Probably. It'll get here when it gets here. That's about the best I can promise.**


	11. Interlude

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:**

 **Okay, so I got a question from a guest asking whether Chess was Human or Faunus. In response to this, I decided to post a little gathering of the info about Chess that has already been told, and some mysteries to leave you guessing.** **:)**

 **Having said this, while I work on Act III feel free to check out Chessur's profile, which is now on my profile page. It leaves some questions, which will be addressed at some point in the story, but it tells you the basic info, and what's already been said.**

 **All I will say is this:**

 **The hat. Pay attention to the hat. It is important. (Not in the way Blake's bow is, she isn't hiding anything under it. Except the occasional cookie for Ruby perhaps.)**

 **Anyway. Feel free to leave a review telling me what you think of the story, and if you don't like anything, actually put in constructive criticism or a polite suggestion \- unlike that one douchebag who just felt the need to act like a 12 year old. Anything you guys have to say would be appreciated on how I can make this story better, and where you want it to go. I'm more than happy to put in your suggestions if I think I can work it in.**

 **That's all for now, and Act III will be here soon...ish...maybe.**

 **I dunno, it gets here when it gets here.**


	12. Announcement - Not a chapter

I may end up stopping writing for a while, and I wanted you all to know so it doesn't feel like I'm just leaving you out to dry on my stories. Here's why.

LINE BREAK

So, I think I might have depression.

I think it probably started a while ago, but I haven't really felt comfortable labelling it until now. Either way, I think I might be depressed.

I have a general feeling of apathy towards everything in my life (including family and friends).

I find myself asking the same question when I do things (from an assignment for University, to getting up in the morning) - "What's the point?". More and more often, I'm finding I can't provide an answer.

I am probably having an existential crisis at the same time (or it's what's causing the depression).

I find myself growing sick of things I used to love. Playing video games? Don't feel like it. Reading? Don't feel like it. Writing? Don't feel like it. I find myself simply staring at the ceiling and doing nothing, because I don't feel like doing **anything**.

I'm exhausted. No matter how much I sleep, no matter what I do during the day, I am always completely exhausted.

I have no idea what I want to do with my life, because _I don't care._ I picked the University course on a whim, and I'm now sick of it, like everything else. I started writing stories on a whim, and now I'm sick of it, like everything else.

I'm just... tired.

...

I will admit, I have seriously considered suicide once or twice. Mostly out of curiosity of what's on the other side, but also because of me being sick of everything. However, odds are I will never do it.

I am a coward. I know this, and I accept it. I will always choose to run from a fight, I will always take the easy way out, and I will always be too afraid to commit suicide.

I'm also extremely lazy, although that may be because of my depression.

Either way, I'm too lazy and too cowardly to commit suicide, so don't worry about that. However, it also means there may be gaps in my story writing. There may be a week, or a fortnight, or even a _month_ , where I stop writing. If this happens, don't worry. I **will** get back to the stories. It just means I'm either in too bad of a place to write, or there's shit happening like University, or shit with family/friends.

LINE BREAK

So that's why I may stop writing for a while. As for right now, I need to sort some stuff out, figure out what I'm going to do with my life (if anything), and probably do some University assignments or something. So the next chapter/s might be a while, sorry.

Sm0key out.


	13. Chapter 11 - Oh, Jauney Boy

**Lady Luck  
Act III - Secrets Galore**

"Pyrrha, I know I'm going through a hard time right now, but I'm not **that** depressed."

Chess lazily looked over from her spot on the roof. The boy, Jaune, and his partner were on their own section of the roof, not 20 metres from where Chess lay.

It had been several days since the incident in the cafeteria, and due to some... **vehement** protesting from Ruby, Chess hadn't been suspended. As such, while she waited for Ruby's class to finish, she lay on the roof napping. On Ruby's insistence, they still hadn't told the rest of Ruby's friends about the 2 of them, but their team had already noticed something different.

"I can always be a farmer, or... something."

"NO!" Realising what he meant, Pyrrha suddenly pushed Jaune away from the edge while Chess snickered silently. The steampunk girl continued to watch in silence, evaporating all but her eyes and her mad grin.

"That's not why I brought you up here. Jaune, I know you're having a difficult time in class... and that you're still not the strongest of fighters, so... I want to help you!"

Jaune simply stood there, the confusion evident on his face even from where Chess was laying.

As Pyrrha continued about training where nobody could bother them, Chessur became less interested, preparing to leave. She paused when Jaune spoke.

"You... think I need help?"

Chess struggled **very** hard not to burst out laughing. Of course he needed help, he was the most pathetic fighter in the entire first year cohort. Better Pyrrha train him than someone like Chess. Chess would probably end up killing him if she decided to 'train' him.

The pair kept arguing, Chess paying attention out of boredom more than anything else.

"I wasn't really accepted into Beacon."

 _Sorry, what?_ Chess was suddenly paying very close attention as Pyrrha questioned what that meant.

"I mean I didn't **go** to combat school, I didn't pass any tests, I didn't **earn** my spot at this academy! I lied! I got my hands on some fake transcripts, and I **lied**."

 _Well. Gotta say, that explains a helluva lot. Still... At least he'll get training from his partner... Or not._ She adjusted her thinking as Jaune explained his dream, then flat out refused training from his partner.

As Pyrrha left, looking despondent, it was obvious she was more hurt than she should be. It clicked for Chess in that moment, seeing Pyrrha so crushed. _She likes him. How did I not see it? More to the point, how does HE not see it? The only person I know more clueless than him is... Yeah, I got nothing. I'm pulling a blank here._

Both Chess and Jaune were surprised when Cardin pulled himself over the edge of the roof, chuckling. Chess could still see him wince as he did so, proof of their... interaction... in the cafeteria. She immediately lost her mad grin in exchange for a scowl. Good thing she was still evaporated.

The conversation between Cardin and Jaune went on, Cardin revealing that he'd heard everything. Chess simply rolled her eyes and waited for Jaune to threaten him if he revealed anything... before realising who she was talking about here. Chess would have facepalmed - if she hadn't been all but intangible - when Jaune simply **begged** Cardin not to say anything.

"Jaune. Come **on**. I'd **never** rat out a friend like that." Chess rolled her eyes upon hearing Cardin's words.

"A-A friend?" Jaune almost sounded like he wanted to believe it. Right up until Cardin got him in a headlock.

Cardin proceeded to 'persuade' Jaune to do some extra homework for him.

"Don't worry Jaune," Cardin said as he climbed off the rooftop once more. "Your secret's safe with me..."

Chess waited a minute, while Jaune simply sat there on the ground feeling sorry for himself.

 _You know what? Screw it. This moron's obviously continued to screw with Jaune, and if the blonde idiot wants to let it happen, then so be it. I'll wait, he has to stand up for himself at some point._

Chess thought nothing more of it as she evaporated straight into her hammock, thinking upon what she had just learned.

* * *

"I can't wait for tomorrow! It's gonna be so awesome!" Yang Xiao Long quipped for the 8th time that day. Everyone else on the team - barring Chess - told her to shut up and get ready for bed. Even Ruby wasn't being as excitable as Yang about this - probably because Yang knew what the Forest of Forever Fall was, while Ruby had no idea.

"I'll be back guys, I'm going to get some cookies." Ruby suddenly disappeared out of the doorway before Ice Queen could say anything. Chess was the only one who knew Weiss wouldn't have said anything, if only because of who was sitting in a hammock above them.

Knowing this, Chess turned and gave a sly smile to the resident Schnee, who huffed and turned away. _Hm, she's losing her fear. No matter. If she starts going off at my little Rose again, I'll do more than instill fear._

After a minute, the door opened again, and Chess heard Ruby talking to someone else.

"Have a good night, Jaune."

Ah, so he was still having problems then. Chess simply rolled her eyes while Ruby couldn't see, then turned to look at them all while wearing another of her patented mad grins.

"No cookies then little Rose?" Ruby blushed at Chessur's nickname for her, and shook her head.

"No, I had to talk to Jaune. He's... going through a bit of trouble."

Chess simply hummed in acknowledgement and went back to her scroll. Tittering at whatever she was looking at, she barely noticed as the rest of the team went to sleep, getting as much rest as they could for the field trip the next day. After a few minutes more on her scroll, Chess did the same, dreaming her dreams of roses.

* * *

"Yes students, the Forest of Forever Fall is indeed beautiful. But we are not here to sight-see. Professor Peach has asked all of you to collect samples from the trees deep inside this forest." Glynda Goodwitch went on to explain what they were to do for the day, while Chess leaned over to talk quietly with her team. She was dying to know something...

"Who's Professor Peach?"

The rest of her team looked at each other and they all shrugged in unison.

"Wow. You'd think at least one student on this trip would know who it is..." Chess raised an eyebrow as the groups split up. Team RWBYC and 3 members of JNPR went together, while Jaune went with team CRDL. As they collected the red sap, Chess noticed Nora taking one of the jars Ren had collected and... eating it?

"Is it any good?" Chess called out to the orange-haired girl.

"Mmm! Soooooo good!" Nora had a twinkle in her eyes from the taste, even as Ren told her not to do it again. She was apparently fine with that; it was so sweet that 1 jar was enough.

Chess looked in the jar in her hand, half full. _Ah, screw it. Can't hurt, right?_

As she quickly drank the sap she had collected, Chess immediately loved it. _Oooh, Nora was right. This is soooo good._ However, she immediately realised a problem. The sap really was sweet. It almost made her sick.

"Hmm. Ruby?" The girl in question looked over as Chess continued. "I am immediately regretting every decision I've ever made. Particularly those in the last 5 minutes." With this, Chess focused extremely hard, trying her best not to throw up. She succeeded.

Ruby was patting her on the back, noticing that her girlfriend's face was almost literally green.

Chess was over the sickness in a minute, smiling softly at Ruby. The steampunk girl then decided to finish collecting her jar, and go see what was happening with Jaune.

Unknown to her, at that minute Jaune was throwing a jar of sap at Cardin Winchester.

Things were not looking good for him.

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

 **Welcome to Act III of Lady Luck! I'll be releasing the chapters on Fridays and Tuesdays, that's on AEST. So for y'all in America it's probably every Thursday and Monday.**

 **Anyway, instead of putting it in every chapter I'll just say it here: Feel free to leave a review on any of the chapters, and/or PM any questions, and I hope you enjoy the Act!**


	14. Chapter 12 - Forever Fall

Chess looked up as none other than... wait, what was his name again? Well, the idiot with the mohawk from team CRDL rushed by screaming something about an Ursa having Cardin.

 _Now_ _ **this**_ _should be interesting..._

Soon enough Ruby, Weiss and Pyrrha were making their way towards where the idiot had come from, so Chess decided to follow.

Chess arrived at the clearing in time to see Pyrrha subtly lift a hand towards Jaune, who was apparently in the middle of protecting Cardin from an Ursa Major.

 _Huh. Wonders will never cease, it would seem..._

Chess noticed the faint black aura surround Jaune's shield, and his surprised expression when his shield moved to deflect the Ursa's strike. Frowning, she quickly figured out Pyrrha did something, just as Jaune decapitated the Ursa in 1 swing.

Chess raised her eyebrows at this astonishing display of strength. Ursai have thick skin, and are naturally extremely tough, so to decapitate one in a single swing - without even seeming to slow the swing down - was impressive indeed. Chess made a mental note to keep an eye on Jaune, despite his many failings.

As they were walking back to the rest of the teams, Chess evaporated in front of Pyrrha, stopping the armoured girl in her tracks. Cheshire grin ever present, she asked the question that needed to be asked.

"Are you sure that was wise, Pyrrha?"

Bristling, the girl's reply was so cold in tone it could've brought on a new ice age.

"Yes, Chessur, I am sure I made the right decision. Otherwise, Jaune might have died."

"Hmm, perhaps. I doubt it though." Upon seeing Pyrrha's raised eyebrow and irritated expression, Chess continued. "His aura was high enough to withstand the hit. Plus, is it truly wise to have someone out there who thinks he's better than he is? That can only be a recipe for disaster..."

Pyrrha didn't even deign to reply, simply pushing past Chess and walking away. Chess simply smiled wider and giggled, while Ruby and Weiss shared a glance. The 2 partners were obviously worried about the fact that Pyrrha managed to get so irritated that quickly. Weiss continued on after Pyrrha while Ruby stopped to have a chat with her secret girlfriend. They hadn't decided to tell everyone else, at least not yet.

"Chess, did you have to be so mean?" Chess looked confused, so Ruby elaborated. "She was just trying to make sure he didn't die. Better safe than sorry, ya know?"

"Hmm, I suppose you have a point. Still, he can't be coddled for all his time at Beacon..."

"He'll get better, he just needs time. Better to save him so he has confidence, right?"

Chess pondered for a minute, then nodded. Smiling, she turned to her girlfriend.

"You always know how to cheer me up, little Rose."

With this, she leaned over and quickly caught Ruby in a kiss. Caught by surprise, Ruby's mind temporarily shut down and she just relaxed into the feeling of the kiss. After a few seconds, Chess pulled away and looked at the dazed expression on Ruby's face before giggling. Coming out of the daze, Ruby's face turned the same shade as her cloak before she burst out a quiet shriek.

"CHEEEESSSSS!" To this, Chess only smiled softly and gave a quiet giggle.

"It's worth it to see you so flustered, little Rose." Ruby tried burying her face in her hood while Chess giggled once more and started walking towards the other teams, Ruby following behind.

However, she quickly noticed something.

"Be right back Ruby." Chess said quietly before she evaporated.

Reappearing, she tapped the shoulder of the person who had seen them kiss from behind a tree.

Squealing in surprise, Jaune turned to face her, and suddenly went desperately pale. In response, Chess only grinned in a predatory manner. Jaune gulped, and began stumbling over his words, before Chess simply put a finger over her pursed lips in the universal gesture for 'shush'. Luckily, the boy got the message and nodded, agreeing to not say anything.

Amazing, how some conversations didn't even need words.

Evaporating back to Ruby's side, Chess smiled softly at her. Ignoring the red-clad girl's questioning glance, she continued to walk back with Ruby by her side.

* * *

A few days had passed, and team RWBYC had decided to head into Vale. While the RWBY section of the team went to visit the docks, Chess quietly split off from the team and left to go do her own thing. Ruby was the only one to notice Chess was leaving, so Chess quietly told her not to worry, and that she'd be back soon...ish. Probably.

Before Ruby could protest or alert the team, Chess evaporated, appearing outside the 1 place in Vale she was least wanted, and the 1 place she wanted to go.

Chess grinned and walked into Junior's club.

* * *

Junior had been having a good day. He had woken up on the right side of the bed, and the twins weren't arguing for once - he'd never known them to **not** argue, and he'd hired them for almost a year, ever since Lady Luck decided to kill the gambling group he used to run. He was having a pretty good day.

Then Lady Luck herself walked through his door.

Upon seeing her, he inadvertently took a few steps back in fear. He was so dumbstruck by fear he probably couldn't have called for the twins if he'd tried. Thankfully, there was almost nobody in the club at that moment, except for his men and a single patron sitting at the bar. Seeing him, Lady Luck simply made a 'shush' gesture, and walked over to the bar. She ordered a drink and patted the stool next to her, looking at Junior.

Swallowing his fear, Junior sat down next to Lady Luck, and quickly motioned the bartender to get him a drink as well. As he did, she spoke.

"You can relax, Junior, I'm just here for a drink." He almost would've believed her if it wasn't for the massive grin adorning her face.

"Yeah, and I'm Spruce Willis. Last time you came through those doors, you killed everyone in here." At this, she frowned.

"They attacked first, and tried to kill me. So I responded in kind. So long as you don't try to kill me, I'm happy to sit here and have a few drinks, then leave." Junior almost couldn't believe his ears.

"Fine. Just have your drinks, then leave. I don't like having you here, so you'd better leave a **damn** generous tip."

She snorted, but didn't refuse. Junior took this for agreement, so he stood up and walked back to his office.

There went his good day.


	15. Chapter 13 - Here, Kitty Kitty

Chess looked down at her scroll, somewhat struggling to read the message Ruby had sent her. Despite her Aura, not to mention her semblances, it seemed she still couldn't hold her liquor. Finally she managed to decode the swirling letters in front of her. Being intoxicated as she was, she didn't realise she was reading it out loud.

"'Chess: Weiss and Blake are in the middle of a mass-' ***hic* '** massive argument. Headed back to the dorms, mee-' ***hic*** 'meet you there.' Fantastic." She sighed. "God dammit Ice Queen."

As she stood up, she swayed in place. Making her way out the door, she stumbled onto the sidewalk and started making her way towards Beacon. She knew she needed to walk, for 2 reasons; both she couldn't possibly be coordinated enough to use her semblance in the state she was in, and her mood drastically changed when she was drunk.

When Chess got drunk, she became something almost... normal, with only one noticeable difference. She acted like a normal person... if that person was in a depressed mood. The Cheshire Grin so often seen on her face all but disappeared when she was drunk, and she became depressed and withdrawn, shrinking into memories of her sordid past and avoiding everyone.

If she appeared in Beacon in that sort of mood, it would **not** be good. As such, she needed to walk. As she did, however, she evaporated on the spot several times throughout the trip, to try and evaporate some of the alcohol in her blood. It somewhat worked, and what she didn't get out by that method was worn off by the time it took to walk there. By the time she got to Beacon, she was back to her strange self...

Only to walk in on Blake and Weiss, **still** arguing. Chess merely raised an eyebrow when only Ruby noticed her enter, but no answers were forthcoming from the girl in red. Mainly because the monochrome part of the team was arguing too loudly. Chess took a moment to listen in to hear the 2 arguing about the White Fang, which caused Chess to frown in displeasure.

"I'm a **victim**!"

Ruby was the only one to notice as Chessur's expression formed into something that could only be described as pure rage and hatred. She was the only one to notice Chess very suddenly evaporate out of the room.

* * *

A box shattered against the wall of the warehouse Chess owned.

" **YOU'RE** a victim?!"

Chess threw another box, but it was doing little to alleviate the rage... So Chess threw fire instead.

Soon enough the entire warehouse was up in flames, but Chess just sat in the middle of it on her knees, head down. She began muttering to herself to try and calm down.

"Relax, Jade. They don't know. They **can't** know. She genuinely thinks she's a victim of **anything**. The White Fang... If only she could see that they're not the worst monsters this world has to offer..."

Sighing, Chess stood up and walked to the door, before realising the entire warehouse was about to collapse.

'Oops.'

Quickly evaporating, she left the warehouse behind and appeared on her spot on Beacon's roof.

She needed some time to herself.

* * *

This had to be - by far - the most stressful weekend Ruby had ever had. It would've been the most worrying, but the 'weekend when her mother had been late coming home, from what would turn out to be her last mission' took that particular cake.

After her accidental confession, Blake had been missing for the entire weekend, so they had decided to search for her. Well, Ruby and Yang had decided. Weiss didn't want to, but came along anyway, and Ruby was in the middle of trying to find Chess so they could all search together...

Okay, so maybe Ruby just wanted to know what was up with her girlfriend. But if anyone asked, it was because they were going to search as a team.

Chess had been avoiding everyone all weekend, even Ruby herself. When the silver-eyed girl had tried to question her, Chess had simply dodged the question and evaporated. Speak of the devil...

"Chess! There you are!" Chess turned around and smiled softly at her girlfriend.

"Why, little Rose, if you sneak up on me like that I might just get scared..." Chess smirked playfully while Ruby simply grabbed her arm and dragged her to an empty classroom nearby.

"An empty classroom? My my, feeling a little suggestive today are we?" Ruby turned the same colour as her cloak and attempted to sputter out a denial, while Chess laughed her head off in the background. After regaining her composure, Ruby began to speak.

"Chess, I need to know what's wrong. I need to know why you're avoiding us, and what happened to make you do it in the first place."

Chess stopped laughing instantly.

"No. I can't tell you why I've been seeking my own company rather than anyone else's. I'm sorry, but I can't, and I hope you can accept that. However, I will tell you this: I'm good now, okay? I won't avoid you guys any longer, and go back to my usual self. Sound good?"

Ruby sighed. It was better than nothing, at least.

"Fine... Now come on, we're going to look for Blake as a team, you included."

Grabbing Chess by the hand once more, she rushed out of the classroom and down to the air docks, where Yang and Weiss were waiting. While Weiss simply looked peeved to have to go in the first place, Yang glanced towards the linked hands of Ruby and Chess, raising an eyebrow with an accompanying smirk.

Blushing profusely, Ruby quickly withdrew her hand, going to walk to the airship.

However, Chess had other ideas. They had to tell them somehow, right? Rolling her eyes at Ruby's shyness, Chess sighed and grabbed Ruby's arm, before pulling her in and locking lips with her... Right in front of Weiss and Yang.

After a solid 5 second kiss, Chess pulled away, with Ruby whining and leaning in to try and keep going. However, Chess simply giggled and gave the dazed Ruby a peck on the forehead, before whispering something.

"See you in Vale. Have fun with the explaining..." She sung the last part in a sing-song voice, then evaporated into thin air.

After a second, it clicked what Chess had said, and Ruby slowly looked over to see Weiss with wide eyes, and her jaw had dropped. But Weiss wasn't the one Ruby was worried about.

Slowly, she turned her head to meet the red eyes of a very, **very** angry Yang Xiao Long.

"So, uh... Yeah..."

Oh God, this was gonna be awkward...

* * *

"So... have you told your friends any of this?"

As Blake looked down at her tea again, she was lost in her own thoughts. Enough so that she failed to notice a **very** noticeable top hat float over the table, and above one of the spare chairs. Sun, meanwhile, was rendered speechless. He'd never seen a floating hat before... He heard a whisper emanate from the hat, and he was sure Blake did too.

"Here, puss puss."

Blake's head shot up just as Chess suddenly appeared beneath the hat in a puff of mist, mad grin present as always. This, of course, was followed by Blake beginning to stand and run, but Chess grabbed her arm and pulled her back into the chair while speaking.

"Relax, kitty cat. I'm just here to chat. Well, I'm also here because I was bored and I like this café, but same difference."

Blake still looked panicked and ready to bolt, so Chess conceded with a sigh.

"Fine, I'll leave you be. I promise I won't even tell the others where you are. Just hurry up and come back, Ruby's becoming _insufferably_ worried."

With these final words, Chess evaporated once more, leaving no sign she was ever there. Blake visibly relaxed, so Sun felt justified in asking his next question.

"Hey Blake?" She sighed.

"Yeah Sun?" He took a deep breath before almost yelling out his question.

"The **hell** was that?!"

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

 **I just came up with a ship name (or rather a couple name, really) for Chess and Ruby.**

 **Ace of Roses.**

 **I know it's not perfect, and it's unusual to have ship names involving OC's (which is why I said couple name rather than ship name), but it suddenly popped into my head and I thought it was nice, so I decided to tell y'all. If you guys don't like it, or don't want it ever mentioned again, no problems, I'll just keep it to myself.**


	16. Chapter 14 - Black and White

"Oh! Chess, you're back! Weiss and Yang ran off, but this is a friend I met a few days ago! Her name's Penny!" It appeared Ruby wasn't even mad at Chess for leaving her to do the explaining about their relationship. Chess couldn't have imagined Yang would be happy about that... But back to the matter at hand.

Chess raised an eyebrow at Ruby's nervous prattling before evaporating to appear right in front of Penny. To her credit, the orange-haired girl didn't even flinch.

"Hello there." The way Chess spoke her greeting was vaguely similar to the purr of a cat.

"Sal-u-tations! I am pleased to meet you!" As Penny spoke, Chess couldn't shake the feeling something was off about this girl.

"Well anyway Penny this is my gi- I mean my friend Chessur! She prefers to be called Chess though, so yeah."

After Ruby's spiel, Penny turned to the steampunk girl.

"Greetings, friend Chess! Would you like to 'hang out' with friend Ruby and I?"

Chess simply nodded lazily, beginning to float and do backflips in midair. Penny didn't seem to find it out of the ordinary, only continuing to talk to Ruby.

 _What an interesting girl..._

* * *

Things didn't look good.

They had followed the sound of explosions all the way to the dock areas, seeing Bullheads flying around.

As they got to the rooftop, Ruby saw the faunus from earlier on the ground, and none other than Roman Torchwick himself holding his cane to the blonde's head. Ruby knew what was going to happen, and instinctively tried to draw the villain's attention.

"Hey!"

As Roman stopped to look, Ruby swung her scythe menacingly.

"Oh, hello Red! Isn't it past your bedtime?"

Before Ruby could respond, there was a voice from behind her.

"Ruby, are these people your friends?"

Silver eyes widened as she realised the danger her new friend was in. Turning, she was about to tell Chess to protect Penny, but the steampunk girl was nowhere to be seen. Oh well, Ruby would have to make do.

"Penny, get back!"

So occupied was she that she didn't hear the whistling of the Dust round headed towards her. She **did** , however, hear the explosion that happened no more than a metre from her face. Turning back, what she saw defied explanation.

Chess was standing in front of Ruby with her hand out, and all the fire from the red Dust round was... flowing into her? Before Ruby could even begin to think any further, she heard a voice she'd only heard once before... A voice that still chilled everyone but her to the bone.

 **"Oh, HELL no. See, now that's just rude."**

Making sure her voice carried to the cupcake **cock-clown** that had **dared** to fire at her **girlfriend** , Chess was filled with pure, unbridled hatred for the **glitter-toed, cock-wrangling, fairy-tinkle fuck-nugget** with the orange hair.

Scowling, Roman fired 3 more Dust rounds, only to see them once more be stopped by the steampunk girl. What was it with little girls and interfering in his plans?!

 **"Hey asshole!"** Roman scowled at the insult. **"How 'bout a taste of your own medicine?"**

Torchwick's eyes summarily went wide with shock at the **massive fucking fireball** headed his way.

* * *

Ruby could only stare in absolute awe as Chess absorbed the fire of red Dust rounds, then shot it back out with her bare hands. The silver-eyed girl could see the veins on Chessur's skin, and they were **glowing**. Her veins had started to glow a bright red... Or was it orange? While Chess kept lobbing fireballs at Roman, Ruby shifted around to better see the front of her girlfriend. When she did, she immediately noticed something.

Chessur's eyes had turned completely black.

The pupil, the iris, the sclera, they had all turned completely... black wasn't the right word. It was as though her eyes were absorbing all the light around them, so they appeared to be voids, or holes in reality.

Ruby thought it was the most beautifully awesome thing she had ever seen.

However, that didn't stop her wondering what in the hell was going on. As Chess jumped down and began shooting fireballs from her hands, Ruby paled as she quickly noticed that Chess was **killing** the White Fang soldiers she aimed at. The other soldiers seemed to realise this too, as they started to flee once it became clear they were outmatched. Scowling, Torchwick followed, jumping into a bullhead while Chess was still occupied with taking care of the last few White Fang soldiers. Penny, meanwhile, kept watching on - as she had been for the entire fight.

Upon noticing that the orange-haired asshole was getting away, Chess gave a scowl of her own and shot several fireballs at the Bullheads. However, by this point she had used far too much energy, and was on the verge of exhaustion, with a side order of Aura depletion. She fell to one knee as the Bullheads flew into the distance.

Noticing her collapse, Ruby rushed to the aid of Chess. Immediately the steampunk girl waved her girlfriend off.

"I'm fine, little Rose, just... a little tired..."

With that last sentence, Chess collapsed into unconsciousness, and for the first time Ruby had ever seen, something peculiar happened.

Chessur's hat fell off.

Ruby was surprised to see it didn't hide anything, Chess wasn't secretly a faunus or anything. It's just that Ruby had never seen Chess without her hat. She even wore it to sleep.

A large portion of the reason for Chess falling unconscious was that she couldn't be bothered to stay awake any more. Ruby had no idea of this, however, and was summarily freaking out over her girlfriend's collapse. Once Ruby noted that Chess was still breathing, she grabbed the steampunk girl - and her hat - and blasted her semblance back to Beacon.

As Weiss and Yang finally made it to the docks, all they saw was a blur fly past them, followed by a cyclone of rose petals. Soon after, Weiss and Blake made up, with Yang still wondering where her sister had been going in such a hurry, and where the fifth member of their team was...

* * *

Chess groggily opened her eyes, shaking her head lightly. She quickly realised that was a mistake, if the blinding migraine was anything to go by.

"Chess! You're awake!" God, but Ruby's naturally high voice and loud volume were **definitely** not helping the headache.

"Little Rose, as much as I appreciate the sentiment, please do try to keep the volume _below_ a shout... I have a massive headache right now."

Ruby looked abashed and stumbled to apologise before Chess held up a hand.

"It's okay. Just... where am I?"

"I brought you to the infirmary at Beacon after you collapsed and... Chess, what's wrong?" Chessur's eyes had gone wide as plates, panic setting in her mind.

"Ruby, what exactly did they do to me? What tests did they run? And where's my hat?"

"U-uh, they j-just measured your Aura! They said your Aura was depleted and to keep you in bed! A-And your hat's right over there on the bedside table!" Ruby stuttered while answering, she wasn't used to this level of panic from her girlfriend. After she squeaked out the answer, Chess visibly relaxed, letting out a sigh of relief.

"Hey Chess?" Ruby looked nervous.

"Yes, little Rose?" Chess closed her eyes and laid back on the bed, relaxing.

"What was that, back at the docks?" Chess tensed. "You absorbed the fire from the dust round..." Chess frowned. "You even threw fire of your own." Chess was now outright scowling.

"Trust me, Ruby, you do not need to know. It is something I will take to my grave, unless it becomes necessary to tell you about my past." Ruby simply looked confused by the statement, so Chess simplified it. "Don't worry about it."

"But Cheeeeeeessssssssss!" Chess couldn't help but wince in pain. Ruby noticed, and remembered Chess had mentioned having a headache. "Sorry, sorry!" She continued in a whisper.

"Little Rose, forget about it. Just leave it alone. Now, I need to sleep off this headache, okay?" Ruby nodded sadly, and Chess smiled. Before Ruby could leave, the steampunk girl grabbed her arm and pulled her down into a passionate kiss.

Breaking apart after a few seconds, the two girls smiled at each other, Ruby only slightly blushing. Soon after, the caped girl left and Chess was left on her own to sleep.

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

 **And that's Act III! Sorry it's a little shorter, I just wanted to round it out to the end of Volume 1. Also sorry it took so long, but I've been dealing with home life and working on Team CMEO as well.**

 **Anyway, as always feel free to leave a review and/or PM any questions. Hope you enjoyed!**


	17. Announcement 2

Alright, so. Here's some news.

I'm taking a small break from writing for a while. Shouldn't be long, probably no more than a couple of weeks at most. But there are some things happening in my life which have caused me to not be in the right mindset to write. I'm getting kicked out of home in August, I have to find a car, my driving test has been dicked around so I have no idea when I'm supposed to take it, I need to find a job, and all my plans I previously had are falling apart. In other words, I am pretty fucking stressed out right now. Couple that with my mental issues and shit is not going well.

It really, REALLY doesn't help that I had the next chapter of Team CMEO almost done, when my computer decided to restart out of nowhere. Due to this, I lost that chapter, and a half-complete chapter of Lady Luck. So that's a bitch.

I won't be writing for a little bit, so the end of Team CMEO and the next Act of Lady Luck will have to wait, sorry guys.

Welp, time to go feed my alcoholism with some whiskey XD

Sm0key out.


	18. Chapter 15 - Food Fight

**LADY LUCK**

 **ACT IV - BLAST FROM THE PAST**

* * *

 _"Why is a raven like a writing desk?"_

 _"…why?"_

 _"I haven't the FAINTEST idea! HEHAHAHEHA!"_

 _"I… I can't stay any longer… I have to go. Goodbye. And…_

* * *

 _"I'm so, so sorry."_

Chess bolted upright in her hammock, panting and looking around wildly. The nightmares kept getting more and more frequent. At this rate she might go mad!

"Ha. Now that's a funny thought."

"What's a funny thought?" Ruby called from below, where the rest of team RWBYC was getting ready for the day. They had all noticed her restless sleep and her panicked awakening, but decided not to comment.

"Well, I was just thinking about a possible tragedy!" At this point, everyone except Ruby was ignoring Chess, knowing her antics were liable to be confusing.

"What tragedy?" Ruby cocked her head in curiosity. Sometimes Chess would tell the most amazing of stories, entertaining Ruby long after they finished. The only thing was, she changed her stories every time, so no one was ever the same.

"Well, I was just imagining. If the Jabberwock destroyed the TumTum tree, where would I sleep?"

At this point, Ruby realised this wasn't a story, just Chess being her usual mad self. She even had the grin to go with it.

"Uh… you'd sleep here, like you normally do?"

"No, no! Not me, the other me! The me of Jabberwocks and Bandersnatches! Of cards and pawns, knaves and knights, two Queens and a mad, mad-"

"If you're quite done, it's time for breakfast." Weiss interrupted coldly. Ruby realised Blake and Yang had already left, and with a small 'eep' raced after them.

"I. Was **talking**."

Weiss rolled her eyes and turned to the glaring steampunk girl.

"I'm sorry, but we were hungry, and Ruby's so kind she would've starved waiting for you to finish another one of your ridiculous rambles. If you're not going to care about eating for yourself, at least care about your… _girlfriend_." Weiss still sounded uncomfortable calling the two a couple. With a final huff, Weiss walked away, headed to the cafeteria.

Scowling, Chess evaporated.

* * *

"Ahem! Sisters! Friends! …Weiss."

"Hey!"

"Four score and seven minutes ago, I had a dream!" Ruby pronounced.

"This ought to be good." Came Yang's snarky reply, right before catching yet another piece of food thrown by Nora.

"A dream that one day the five of us would come together – as a team – and have the most fun anyone has ever had… **EVER**!" Ruby continued, ignoring her sister.

"Did you steal my binder?" Weiss asked with a suspicious note in her tone.

"I am not a crook." Ruby denied.

"Well that's simply not true right there," Chess suddenly proclaimed from right behind Ruby. After the hooded girl turned with a small 'eep', Chess continued. "After all, you did steal my attentions and affections, my mind and my heart." The small smirk on the steampunk girl's face became even more prominent when Ruby went as red as her namesake.

In response to this cheesy remark, Yang started guffawing, Blake rolled her eyes with a slight smile, and Weiss simply facepalmed.

"A-anyway… I have a whole bunch of awesome activities for us to do together today! Classes start tomorrow, and I wanted to kick the semester off with a bang!" Ruby turned back to the rest of the team and continued speaking, despite still resembling a tomato.

"I dunno about you, but I always start MY semesters off with a **Yang**! Eh? Guys?"

Literally everyone at the table (and Chess, who was now floating upside-down above Ruby) gave Yang deadpan stares that all said the same thing. 'Not funny'. On top of that, Nora threw an apple at Yang, yelling 'Boo'.

While the team continued to talk about Ruby and her planned activities, Chess noticed Yang throw a tomato back, which hit Ren instead. Chess also noticed Nora exact her revenge for poor little Renny by throwing a pie.

Man, Nora **really** needed to work on her aim.

Soon after the pie hit Weiss, things descended into anarchy, with Nora proclaiming her monarchy and team JNPR supporting her, while Ruby and her brave RWBYC rebels opposed. However, Chess decided to sit out lest the teams become unfair.

She did, however, notice the two boys come in, one of them being the monkey faunus that Blake somehow knew.

Evaporating next to them, she scared the living crap out of the two observers.

* * *

"Well, lovely weather, hmm?"

Sun and Neptune jumped, turning to the girl who had appeared behind them, a wide grin on her face.

"Uhhh… Yeah? Bit cloudy?"

As Sun said this, confusion written all over his features, a bowl of spaghetti bolognese hit the wall right beside them.

"Yes, cloudy with a chance of meatballs." The girl's grin dipped a little, as though she was miffed an item of food had actually managed to almost hit them. For a split second it almost looked like she was trying to remember something, but the conversation wasn't finished.

"And yet it seems sunnier now that you're here." Neptune put in with a wink in Chess' direction. Chess merely blinked, semi shocked for a second. She turned to Sun after a second.

"You… haven't told him who I am, have you?" Sun merely looked confused, before it clicked and his eyes widened.

"That was **YOU?!** Holy shit!" Turning to Neptune, he started rambling on about how she threw fireballs and was a total badass at the docks that night. Neptune merely seemed to grow more enamored as he heard more about the girl. Hence, he kept trying to hit on her, which Chess found hilarious.

As this conversation was going on, the food fight continued, the three observers only half paying attention. Luckily ( _heh_ ) most of the food was missing them, with only Neptune getting hit with a small bit of soda every now and again. However, he was too busy hitting on Chess to care. Surprisingly, he didn't seem to care about the wide grin that always adorned the steampunk girl's face.

Sensing the end of the food fight approaching, Chess turned to her companions.

"You might want to find cover, unless you like being purple."

Meanwhile, she evaporated, surprising both Sun and Neptune. They both scrambled for cover, and not a moment too soon. Right after they hid, a massive storm of food came flying into where they would have been.

"I love these guys." Sun proudly stated. Neptune simply replied with a deadpan glare.

Suddenly, a great boom roared through the hall as Glynda Goodwitch, headmistress of Beacon, stormed through the door with a furious expression on her face.

…Well, it was more of an annoyed expression, but the students were scared enough of her for it to be terrifying.

With one flick of her riding crop, the destroyed cafeteria started to tumble and assemble itself back together, with most things going back to the way they were before the fight – with the exception being the girls (and guys) involved in the tussle. They were all still covered in various stains and pieces of food.

"Children. Do not play with your food." With this sentence Professor Goodwitch levelled Nora, Weiss, Ruby, Ren, Jaune, Pyrrha, and Blake with their own respective glares. It was a terrifying scene, interrupted only by one thing.

Yang Xiao Long falling through the ceiling.

The group was still laughing as they made their way out of the cafeteria. They would later find out that Sun and Neptune made a tactical retreat (AKA they ran away from a certain terrifying headmistress) while Ruby, Weiss, Blake and Yang all went to the dorms to shower and change. Meanwhile, nobody had yet noticed the disappearance of Chess, who was nowhere to be found... Whatever could the crazy girl be doing?!

In reality, she was simply having a drink in her apartment and sitting down to watch TV.

* * *

"Oh, look, she sent the kids again." Roman's sarcastic voice echoed throughout the warehouse. "This is turning out just like the divorce."

"Ugh, spare us the thought of you procreating."

"That, was a joke. And this," He held up a piece of paper, " **just** might tell me where you two have been all day."

The argument ensued about the duo's activities, before Roman got annoyed.

"Listen here, you little **punk**. If it were up to me, I would take you and your little street rat friend here, and I would-"

"Do what, Roman?" Cinder's voice rang out from above.

"I'd, uhhhh… **not** kill them?" Roman hesitantly answered as Cinder sidled up to the trio.

"Good, you made enough of a fool of yourself at the docks. I'd hate to watch your pride nosedive at being beaten by a 'punk' and a 'street rat'." Mercury snarked.

"I'll have you know that stealing a massive shipment of Dust is kinda hard when you've got a girl absorbing every attack you throw at her, then throwing **fireballs** at you!"

Mercury was about to reply when Cinder's voice cut through.

"What did you just say?"

Roman looked over to see a curious look on her face.

"Uh, there was a kid absorbing my shots and shooting fireballs at me?"

"How old?" Roman was thoroughly confused by this point.

"I dunno, maybe 16 or so. What does it matter, she's just another Beacon student interrupting me, again!" Cinder ignored him, turning to her subordinates.

"Emerald, Mercury. I'm going to need some supplies…"

Her eyes grew distant, as though trying to recall something.

"There's been a change to the plan."

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

 **I am SOOOOO sorry for the massive absence. There has been a crazy amount of shit happening in my life, and I just have not had the time to do anything. I'll try not to let it happen again, but I'm afraid I can't promise anything. Not to mention the few times where I had time, I've had a moderate case of writer's block...**

 **As recompense for my absence, this act will have 8 chapters. Today is Thursday for me, and I will be releasing the chapters on Thursdays and Mondays.**

 **Feel free to leave a review, and/or PM any questions.**

 **Sm0key out.**


	19. Chapter 16 - Decisions, Decisions

"Well, well. This should make things interesting."

A small smirk adorned Chessur's face instead of the usual mad grin, as she stared out the window. It was the first day of semester, and classes had officially started. RWBYC and JNPR had a free period, so they had all decided to go to the library for a multitude of purposes. Jaune wanted to read his comic book, Pyrrha and Ren wanted to study, and Nora just wanted to sleep. Meanwhile, Ruby, Weiss, Blake and Yang were all playing Remnant: The Board Game.

As for Chess?

She was staring out the window at a certain General's fleet. A certain General, mind you, who would probably want Lady Luck either dead or in jail.

"Hmm, that gives me an idea…"

However, her attention was soon caught by the loud conversation between the sisters, as Yang and Ruby practically bellowed about... whatever it was they were doing. Chess was amazed there wasn't a librarian to keep them quiet, but then again it was a school for **H** **untsmen.**

She looked over to notice Ruby and Weiss bawling in each other's arms, causing Chess to blink a few times out of shock, then rub her eyes. As a last ditch effort she pinched herself, to no avail. Apparently the world had decided to flip upside down. The last she had seen of Weiss and Ruby's friendship, they were friends, but not close enough to cry in each other's arms.

 _Ah well, probably for the best anyway._

She watched as Sun approached the group with Neptune, and smiled. She liked these guys. They seemed to enjoy her brand of madness, and that was always a win in her books. Waltzing over, she stayed out of view to see what they would say to the rest of the group.

"Sup losers."

 _Well, that's one way of saying hi, I suppose._

"Hey Sun!" Ruby replied, chipper as ever.

"Ruby, Blake, Yang… Ice Queen."

"Why does everyone keep calling me that?!"

At this point Chess couldn't help herself, and she chuckled, and spoke as she stepped into view.

"Maybe it's because you're so 'cool', Weiss." The tone Chess used couldn't have **been** more sarcastic.

"Chess! There you are! Oh, this is Sun and Neptune!" Ruby was the first to speak, while Yang chuckled and Weiss glowered.

"We've met." Chess replied with a half-smirk, half-smile.

"Oh, so THAT'S your name. Cool!" Sun shot her a smile and held out his fist. Mad grin returning, Chess fist-bumped the monkey faunus. Meanwhile, Neptune had begun flirting with Weiss, Jaune moping in the background.

"Well, it's a really, REALLY good thing he found someone else to flirt with." Chess remarked to Sun, the two standing off to the side.

"Yeah, he does that a lot." A beat passed. "Wait, why is it a good thing?"

"Well, there's multiple reasons. First, he's not my type, meaning he's a guy. Second, he absolutely could NOT handle me if he tried. Third, I'd have killed him if he continued, because of my last reason."

"Okaaay… And that last reason is?"

"I'm spoken for."

"You are? By who?" Sun looked surprised, and Chess didn't quite blame him. She confused herself sometimes, let alone other people. In response, she subtly nodded her head towards the young leader, and when Sun's eyes followed where she was nodding his jaw dropped.

"Woah." Chess couldn't help but giggle at his dumbfounded face. No doubt he knew how young she was, plus he had probably gathered the kind of person she was. He had probably thought she would never try to get a boyfriend or girlfriend, being too focused on becoming a huntress.

"By the way, you were kidding right? About killing Neptune if he continued?" Sun asked once he got himself back together and picked his jaw off the floor.

Chessur's grin took on a deadly edge. She leaned in close to Sun, who was a little nervous with her behaviour.

"Well, I'll tell you what. Go find a guy named Cardin Winchester, and ask him what happened with Chess in the cafeteria. Either that, or just say the word 'steampunk' in front of him and watch his reaction." Sun's face went a little more nervous, but mostly confused.

Seeing his face, Chess couldn't help but burst out laughing. This caused him to chuckle in response, and things largely went back to how they were before the duo arrived, with the exception of Blake leaving and Neptune playing the game in her stead.

* * *

"Stop."

Blake froze as she reached for the door, Weiss being the only one other than Chess to notice she was leaving.

"Lately you've been quiet, antisocial and moody." Weiss continued.

"Have you MET Blake?" Yang sniped, Chess chuckling at the comment.

"Which, I get, is kind of your 'thing', but you've been doing it more than usual." Weiss had ignored Yang's interruption and kept going. "Which, quite frankly, is unacceptable. You made a promise to me, to all of us, that you would let us know if something was wrong!" Suddenly Weiss burst into the air, balancing on a chair while pointing at Blake, surprising even Chess with the suddenness of it. "SO, BLAKE BELLADONNA, WHAT IS WRONG?!"

Weiss quickly put the chair back, with everyone staring in pure amazement. None of them had ever seen the heiress so… animated.

As Blake started on a rant about the White Fang and Torchwick, Chess simply rolled her eyes and evaporated into her hammock, opening up her scroll and looking at hilarious fail videos with earphones in. Before long however, she was interrupted by an eraser hitting her on the shoulder. Turning around, she noticed everyone pointing at Ruby, who had a sheepish expression on her face.

Rolling her eyes, Chess floated down and spoke.

"Let me guess, Blake said something inspirational and now you all want to hunt the White Fang and/or Torchwick."

"Yep!" Ruby was of course the one to reply. "How'd you know? You had earphones in." Everyone looked at Chess, waiting for the answer.

"Lucky guess." Came the reply, complete with knowing smirk.

Not ten seconds later, and Ruby was running out the door, having forgotten her board game in the library. However, not looking where you're going leads to consequences, as Ruby found out. She literally ran into a dark-skinned girl with green hair.

"Sorry. Are you okay?" Ruby managed to get out, while accepting a hand up from the girl. It was then she noticed the boy standing beside her, with silver hair.

"I'm fine, just watch where you're going." The girl replied.

"I'm Ruby! Are you new?"

"Visiting from Haven, actually." A girl walked in between the other two Haven students. She had crimson hair, and blue eyes, and something about her seemed... weird. Putting the feeling aside, she continued to converse with the visiting students.

As Ruby explained that their dorms were East, Chess was laying down in her hammock about to sleep. Suddenly she got a strange feeling, but she ignored it as she fell into a slumber, dreaming once more…

* * *

 _"Don't you know… don't you know… don't you know…?"_

 _"…No, I don't know."_

 _"But surely you know! You know…"_

 _"…Know what?"_

 _"WE'RE ALL MAD HERE! HAHAHAHAHAhahahahaha…"_

 _"I wish I could help you. I… I wish I could do something. Anything. I'm sorry."_

 _"Don't be sorry. How does one help those unable to be helped? How does one CURE madness? No, do not be sorry. Be happy. Be mad! Be as mad as a hatter!"_

 _"I… I'll try. To honour you, if nothing else. If this is the last time I see you, I'm sorry. I can't come here any more. Goodbye... You little Cheshire Cat." A sad smile, and a mad grin. Tears on both ends. One turning to leave, subtly leaving a razor blade. The other grinning, knowing they can finally escape._

 _"Heh... Goodbye, Alys."_

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

 **Man, I really do love these cliffhangers, don't I? Ah well, all shall be well. Probably. Maybe? I dunno. By the way, it's pronounced 'Alice' despite being spelled 'Alys'. It doesn't break the colour rule either because Alice Blue is a colour.**

 **In response to BaconLord53: It doesn't matter if an update takes a week or a year (though I really hope it never takes me a year...), I do not plan to stop this story until either I believe it's finished, or until there's nothing more I can reasonably write.**

 **For instance, Team CMEO has nearly reached its ending point for now, because Volume 4 didn't really reveal anything new about the show. It was more of a 'recovery' Volume, which isn't needed in my fic since the Fall of Beacon never happened. As such, I can't feasibly write much more until Volume 5 (which is about to come out, so I may get to write more for Team CMEO.)**

 **In all honesty, I'll probably finish Team CMEO off on a good note, with everything open-ended, and - depending on what's revealed in Volume 5 - work on a sequel. After all, at this point in CMEO, the actual team CMEO is no more. Uh, spoilers.**

 **In response to UltimateRwbyShipper: First, love the name. Second, was that pun made of paper? Because it was tearable.**

 **...**

 **Okay, maybe we should leave the puns to Yang.**

 **Anyway, feel free to leave a review and/or PM any questions.**

 **Sm0key out.**


	20. Chapter 17 - The Hunt Begins

Another day, another class. As team RWBYC sat in Professor Port's Grimm Studies class, Chess could tell that only a few people were still awake. Pyrrha was studiously taking notes, and all of team RWBYC were anxious to get out and stop the White Fang (minus Chess, who couldn't really care all that much). Meanwhile, Jaune was trying to get Weiss to agree to hang out with him for a range of activities. Chess, who was seated next to Yang and Pyrrha, let out a small chuckle as she watched the poor buffoon fail at every turn. Yang was also smiling, with a hint of pity in her expression.

Pyrrha, however, was giving Chess the closest thing to a death-glare the champion could give.

Throughout the entirety of the first semester, it became abundantly clear that Pyrrha and Chess would always be at odds, due to their differing worldviews. The spartan girl felt the need to help Jaune, almost acting like a mother figure in some respects. Chess, however, felt that he should be left to his own devices and forced to improve using his own strength... or die trying.

Chess had decent relations with the rest of JNPR, however. Ren was always cautious but cordial around her at first, but once Chess and Nora became fast friends he seemed to give in and trust her more. Jaune had said once or twice that she was the strangest person he knew, but that she was his friend nonetheless. Chess considered them all to be her friends (minus Pyrrha, who was an acquaintance on a good day).

As these thoughts ran through Chess' head, the bell for the end of class rang out. Watching Jaune's complete and utter rejection at the hands of Weiss made Chess and Yang snicker a little, with Pyrrha's glare worsening. Jaune simply dropped his head against the desk, and Yang gave his hair a tussle on the way past.

"One day, Jaune." The blonde brawler told him as she left.

"Yeah, maybe in a few hundred years." Chess added. This caused another groan to come from the poor boy. Chuckling, team RWBYC headed back to their dorm room.

* * *

"Alright, everyone remember their roles?" Ruby asked of her team.

"You and I will head to the CCT to check the Schnee records for any other dust robberies or inconsistencies." Weiss replied promptly. "Seeing as I'm in the family, it shouldn't be a problem."

"The White Fang has regular faction meetings to hand out orders and recruit new members. If I can get in, I can hopefully find out what they're planning." Blake was the next to speak.

"I have an old friend on the shady side of town that typically knows **everything** going on in Vale. I'll take Chess, and hopefully it shouldn't be **too** hard to get information out of him." Yang smirked knowingly as she spoke. Then, Chess spoke up for the first time since they'd entered the dorm.

"Hey, Sun."

"Sup." He replied, hanging upside down from his tail.

"GAH!?" Everybody else on team RWBYC exclaimed as they jumped back from the open window.

"Sun, what are you doing here?!" Blake questioned, the first to regain her senses.

"You guys are **finally** going after that Torchwick guy, right? Well, me and Neptune came to help. 'Cause, ya know, we're awesome." At this, team RWBYC (minus Chess, who was still in her hammock) poked their heads out the window to see Neptune standing on a ledge on the outside of the building.

"Sup. Can I come in now? It's **really** high up out here." Sighing, Ruby and the others brought the two friends in. Then, Ruby started speaking.

"Alright. Sun, you can go with Blake to the White Fang meeting. Neptune, you can go with Yang and Chess. Someone needs to keep them in line..." Ruby added the last part with a knowing smirk towards Chess, to which the reply was a stuck out tongue.

As Ruby suddenly dragged off Weiss, who was trying to argue that Neptune should be her partner, Chess suddenly jumped down from her hammock.

"Welly Welly Wells. Where we goin', pardner?" She proceeded to ask Yang in a Western style voice, while Yang snickered. Suddenly, Yang frowned.

"Hm. There's only enough room on my bike for Neptune. I'll give you the address and meet you there?"

"Sounds good. I'll try not to lose myself on the way there." Chess gave that mad grin of hers once more. Yang passed over the address, and suddenly Chess snickered. At the questioning look, she simply smiled at Yang, and spoke.

"Boy, oh boy, you are in for one **hell** of a surprise when we get there..." Chuckling, Chess evaporated, while Yang was frowning in confusion, and Neptune was just struggling to grasp what was going on.

* * *

When Yang finally showed up at Junior's with Neptune on the back of her bike, Chess was sitting on the curb across the street, laughing at something on her scroll. Hearing the bike, she stood up as Yang pulled up beside her.

"Alright, c'mon. My friend's just in here!" Yang sounded excited.

"Oh, believe me, I know..." Chess gave a deadly grin, making her two companions slightly uneasy.

Walking up to the door, Chess took the lead, and watched as the two bouncers paled. Junior must have given her description to his staff in case she came back. As they watched, the two bouncers ran inside, clearly trying to barricade the door. The trio could hear yelling from inside, right before Yang shot a round from Ember Celica straight into the door, blasting it open. Yang and Chess walked in side-by-side, with Neptune following behind. Taking stock of the room, Yang smiled when she noticed every one of Junior's goons pointing a gun their way.

However, her smile faded when she realised none of them were pointed at her.

They were all pointed at Chess.

Suddenly Junior's voice came from behind the assembled goons.

"STOP, YOU IDIOTS! PUT THE GUNS DOWN!" He sounded so panicked, so... afraid. Yang knew nothing she could ever do would make a man like Junior sound **that** afraid... Which made her seriously worry what Chess had done to evoke that tone.

"Aw, Junior. You remembered me. I'm touched." Chess hadn't lost her deadly grin as she toyed with the owner of the club they now stood in. The goons had backed off, but their hands collectively remained extremely close to their weapons.

"Doesn't Lady Luck have better things to do than visit my bar?" Junior tried to cover the fear with bluster, but anybody and their mother could see he was practically shitting himself.

"Who's Lady Luck?" Neptune asked from behind Yang. Junior turned to them with the most incredulous look on his face, only to see two questioning expressions from Yang and Neptune.

"My God, you really don't know, do you? You have no idea what she's done..." He muttered, too quiet for the teens to hear. It hadn't taken long for Junior to do some digging on the girl who slaughtered his gambling group. He'd found out they weren't the first ones to try and kill Lady Luck. They definitely weren't the first roomful of people she'd butchered with no hesitation. The girl had a kill count in the low hundreds...

The girl who was now making a 'shush' motion with a deadly grin, promising pain if he talked.

"What are you muttering about?" Yang sounded both confused, and slightly scared. The look on Junior's face was as though he'd seen horrifying things. The only person who wasn't asking who Lady Luck was, was Chess. That meant... "Chess, who's Lady Luck?"

"An... acquaintance... of mine and Junior's. Now, have you already forgotten why we're here, Yang? Unlike you to be so forgetful." At this, Chess tittered and started doing somersaults while floating. Yang simply filed the conversation away in her mind under 'to ask about later'.

"Right. Junior, we have some questions to ask you. Plus, you still owe me that drink." At this, she began to drag off Junior, only just hearing Chess saying she'd be 'around'. Neptune was the one to see her float up to the rafters and lie down - upside down - on the ceiling. He also wondered something else, having only met the girl a few select times...

How the hell was her hat staying on?

* * *

Sighing, Yang called out to Chess, who floated down from the rafters.

 _Fat lot of good that did._

They hadn't been able to learn anything they didn't already know about Torchwick or the Fang. In other words, the whole venture was a colossal waste of time.

"So, did we find out anything? Because judging by that look, I'm going to guess no..." Chess tittered at the glare Yang sent her way. Walking out of the club, the trio made small talk until they reached Yang's bike.

"Don't think I've forgotten about that unfinished conversation back there." Yang turned a hard stare on Chess. "I'm going to get the full story out of you. I wanna know who this 'Lady Luck' is, and how you know someone who's an 'acquaintance' of a shady guy like Junior. I also wanna know why Junior was so afraid of you." Chess didn't respond for a good minute, but her smile disappeared. Just as Yang was about to repeat herself, Chess spoke.

"Some things are best left forgotten. Leave it, Yang." In that moment, Chess wasn't the mad, deluded steampunk girl. In that moment, she became fully serious. **Deadly** serious... And both Yang and Neptune knew it. They could feel a sense of danger radiating off the girl in front of them. Taking an involuntary step back, the two were suddenly distracted by Yang's scroll going off. As Yang answered it, the trio heard Blake and Sun calling for help. With one last wary look at Chess, Yang put her helmet on.

"Go. I'll catch up." Chess winked at the pair and evaporated. Yang and Neptune shared a glance before getting on the bike and riding to the aid of their teammates.

* * *

Chess reappeared directly in front of Junior, causing the man to jump back in fright. Not wasting time, she got straight to the point.

"You are **never, EVER** to tell anyone, **especially** anyone related to Beacon in any way, what you know about me. Are we clear?" There was no smile, no grin. She was very, **very** serious. Junior could only nod in fear.

Satisfied, the girl evaporated once more, having no idea what was coming... no idea what waited for her, not 10 minutes from that very moment.

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

 **Here we get a glimpse of a deadly serious Chess, something which only happens under dire circumstances. I will warn all of you at this point, this fic may have some pretty dark themes sooner or later, and it may not have a happy ending. Not everyone will necessarily make it out alive.**

 **Also, I updated Chessur's Bio a bit on my profile page, so if you didn't know about that then feel free to go read it, and if you did then feel free to read the updated version.**

 **As always, feel free to leave a review and/or PM any questions.**

 **Hope you enjoyed, and I'm so glad you guys seem to be loving this story!**

 **Sm0key out.**


	21. Chapter 18 - Hello Again

**Before the Chapter begins, I KNOW. I am rather late. Unfortunately, it couldn't be helped. Between job interviews, issues with friends, and a family emergency, the last week has been really hectic for me. This chapter was supposed to be released yesterday, so I'm sorry about the wait. Anyway, enjoy!**

* * *

As the bike raced down the highway while following the giant mech, Yang still couldn't get her mind off the conversation with Chess. The girl had never told them anything about her past, and it was beyond suspicious.

 _I think it's about time I did a little investigating... I might need some help though. I'll see who I can find... But first, let's smack the shit outta Torchwick!_

With a grin almost rivalling the usual one Chess wore, Yang dodged flying cars as Neptune stood on the back of Bumblebee and fired off a few shots. Getting closer, she saw Neptune jump on the mech, but he was soon struggling once it began to spin. Sun brought up the cavalry when he charged at the mech... And was promptly smacked off the highway by a flying Neptune, who had lost his hold on the giant behemoth.

 _Well, so much for that plan._

Looking up ahead, she saw Weiss standing in the middle of the road with Myrtenaster pointing down. Suddenly, Chess appeared next to her, surrounded by a tornado of blue-glowing cards. Regaining her composure after the shocking appearance, Weiss nodded at Chess and stabbed her rapier into the ground, creating a sheet of ice covering half the road. In perfect sync, all of the cards surrounding Chess also flew into the road, covering the other half with ice.

Unable to stop in time, the giant mech fell off the freeway, with Yang jumping off Bumblebee and joining Weiss, Chess and Blake in jumping down to join Ruby in confronting Torchwick.

* * *

Ruby watched as her team jumped down and landed next to her, thinking all the while. She quickly devised a plan as the mech began to stand, calling out for certain team attacks to weaken the mech... or at least slow it down.

Using a combination of sheet ice from Myrtenaster and one of Ember Celica's blasts, the team covered the area in a thick mist. Torchwick activated the mech's laser sights in response, trying to find the team members dashing about in the fog. Well, most of them... Chess simply evaporated and became indistinguishable from the mist.

Occasionally appearing, Chess used her cards to take out a few of the laser sights, causing Torchwick to mutter in frustration. Meanwhile, Blake and Yang created a distraction for Ruby to speed in and take out a few of her own.

"Checkmate!"

At this, Blake and Weiss sped in, taking multiple slashes at the mech's legs, while simultaneously taking out more of the laser sights. Noticing Blake about to be stepped on, Weiss created a glyph underneath her, allowing the faunus girl to jump backwards to safety. In response, Torchwick loosed a barrage of missiles at the monochrome pair, with Weiss using another glyph to allow the duo to dodge.

However, Torchwick was smart. Noticing the heiress was making the glyphs, he used the mech's cannons while she was midair, blasting her away from Blake. As her last act before she flew too far, she summoned a time-dilation glyph under Blake's feet, allowing the faunus to slash apart the barrage of missiles Torchwick had aimed at her. Chess appeared to catch the heiress before she fell.

Coming back into the fight, Ruby called out another team attack name.

"Ladybug!"

In response, Blake dashed with her to the mech's feet, and the pair alternated directions while slicing at the legs of the behemoth. Jumping midair when the mech's cannons fired, the duo was able to use their blades to cut off one of the mech's arms, sending it flying. While it was distracted, Yang jumped on top of it and started blasting away, causing red lights and alarms to start blaring in the cockpit. Meanwhile, Chess had once again appeared and was throwing explosive cards towards the legs, trying to disable the mech. Torchwick scowled and forced the mech to rocket back, slamming Yang into a concrete pillar, before turning around and punching the brawler clear **through** it.

Everyone on the team suddenly looked worried except Ruby and Chess, but were quickly reassured by the knowledge of the blonde's semblance from Ruby. Even Chess stared in awe when the mech threw a fist at the girl, and she simply **caught** it. Then everyone's jaws - except Ruby's - hit the floor when the brawler punched the mech's arm, and it **shattered**. Not one to give in easily, Torchwick kicked the blonde, sending her flying.

At that moment, Ruby shouted yet another team attack name, one which relied on Yang's semblance and Gambol Shroud's ribbons. Yang caught the thrown half of the weapon and began to come around in a slingshot manoeuvre. Coming around, Yang prepared to smash the mech... Only for it to jump out of the way.

"We need to slow it down!" There went Ruby, stating the obvious. "Iceflower!"

As Weiss made Ruby's shots cause ice to appear on the mech, Chess threw dozens of cards, all glowing blue. Together, the three of them managed to make the mech stop moving, and Torchwick could only look on in annoyance as Yang came slinging around once again and smashed the entire mech into pieces. Once again, the entire team - minus Ruby - stared slack-jawed at this astonishing display of strength.

Torchwick got up, dusting off his freshly-cleaned, now-dirtied suit, and turned to face the girls. Staring for a second, he finally noticed who the fifth member of the team was, and frowned in concern. He knew he'd be able to beat the other four... Probably. But Lady Luck...? Maybe not. He couldn't afford to take chances. However, distracted as he was by Chess, he didn't notice Yang's projectile headed towards him, until he was saved at the last second by a pink parasol.

The entire team stared at this newcomer, not knowing what to make of her, before Chess got a strange look on her face. Torchwick smirked, and spoke.

"Ladies. Ice Queen."

"Hey!"

"Always a pleasure." The criminal saluted the team. "Neo, if you would."

Neo, however, was looking worriedly at the intense stare and strange look the steampunk girl was giving her. Yang took the opportunity and charged, roaring.

What happened next, nobody saw coming.

* * *

Yang charged at the ice-cream themed girl, roaring...

Only to be stopped as a hand **caught** her fist. Her semblance-enhanced, charged hit was simply **caught**. Wondering who could do such a thing, her eyes travelled up the arm to see the back of someone's head...

But she'd know that top hat anywhere.

* * *

Chess stared.

She'd caught the attack on a chance, but had to make sure...

Before anyone else could say anything, she began speaking.

"We're all mad here... I'm mad. You're mad." She stared intently, watching as the small criminal's eyes went wide and white, while her face paled. Torchwick looked on in confusion, as did the rest of RWBYC. However, before they could say anything, they heard a voice, raspy and quiet, as though it had not been used in years.

"How do you know I'm mad?" Neo replied, eyes glistening.

"You'd have to be, to come here..." At this point, both Chess and Neo had tears flowing down their cheeks, smiling at each other. Torchwick now looked wary, while the RWBY portion of the team simply glanced at each other in confusion. But that didn't stop the ice-cream girl speaking once more.

"Hello, little Cheshire cat..." Chess smiled softly, tears still streaming, and replied in the only way she could've.

"Hello, Alys."

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

 **I know I'm a dick, ending this chapter here. I really don't care XD. It was the only real place it could've ended nicely, and the cliffhanger's a bonus. I mean, I could've made the chapter even longer, but I would've been put off by the length. The bigger things are - especially when writing - the more I want to procrastinate, even if I'm already late.**

 **Anyway, hope you enjoyed the chapter! Feel free to leave a review, and/or PM me any questions/suggestions.**

 **Sm0key out.**


	22. Chapter 19 - Sound of Silence

**Fuck my life. Seriously, it just won't stop distracting me. Ugh. Well, here is the next chapter, half a week late, because my busy ass has a stupid social life. Apologies for the wait, and I'll try and get the next one out on time if I can.**

* * *

The two girls stood there, staring at each other with tears streaming down their faces. Meanwhile, most of their audience simply looked on in confusion, until the thief broke the silence.

"Ooookaaaay, well as touching as this is, we really must be going. Neo?"

At this, everyone turned to look at Torchwick, while he continued to raise his eyebrow toward Neo. She strode towards him, but halfway there she was stopped by the voice of Chess.

"Alys... You're a thief?" At this, the ice-cream girl nodded with a sad smile towards Chess. "Well, I'm a huntress. So I guess now I have to stop you, don't I?" Neo looked shocked at the blank look on the other girl's face, then seemed saddened as she nodded.

Chess looked at the girl she hadn't seen in so long, one more time. Then, she turned and walked away.

Everyone except Neo looked puzzled at this, while the smaller girl simply smiled sadly and walked towards Torchwick, standing in front of him once again. The rest of RWBYC turned to subdue the duo, Yang once again leading the charge. However, as soon as the brawler's fist hit Neo, the thieving duo shattered into glass-like fragments. Confused, the team looked around to see them escaping on a bullhead, too far away to intercept.

"WHAT THE **FUCK** IS GOING ON?!" Yang suddenly screamed out, flames bursting around her. At this, everyone turned to Ruby, who simply sighed and responded the only way that could possibly calm anyone down.

"I'll go talk to her."

* * *

Chess was once again in Junior's bar, and was going to drink herself into unconsciousness. As the bartenders swapped out, the new one came over to speak up. Being new, he had no idea who this girl was, only that she looked way too young to drink. She saw him and signalled for him to come over, speaking immediately.

"Give me five of the strongest thing you've got. Make it snappy, I'm in a bad mood."

"Excuse me miss, I think you're rather too young to be in here. I'm going to have to ask you to leave." The bartender replied promptly. Seeing what was happening, two nearby thugs looked at each other and bolted to go fetch Junior.

"Is that so...?" The girl gave the bartender a deadpan, neutral look as he nodded. "Are you this much of a fucking moron normally, or is this a first for you?" The bartender huffed, and walked around the bar. He attempted to grab the young lady's arm, only to find himself pinned down to the bar with something sharp to his throat and the girl leaning over him, dangerous look in her eyes. He tried to flip her over, do something, **anything** , but she kept him there, looking him dead in the eyes.

"I'll tell you what's going to happen because you tried that. I'm going to cut off your fingers and toes. Then I might cut off your dick and feed it to you. Then? I might just rip off your arms and beat you to death with them. After that, I'll kill everyone here - **again** \- and simply **take** all the booze. How does that sound?" The cold tone and the dead look in her eyes gave the bartender no doubt she intended to do just that. Before he could respond, there was a voice from across the room.

"Stop! Stop!" Junior cried out as he ran over. "Look, he's sorry, it won't happen again. Just put him down. Please. I'll let you have free drinks for the rest of the night, just don't start this up again." The panicked expression on Junior's face said it all. Looking around, Chess saw the dozens of nervous thugs that clearly didn't want to die because of one idiot's mistake. Sighing, she took her card away from the terrified idiot's throat... Then threw him across the room and through the massive entrance doors.

"Get me a new bartender. And fuck the glasses, just get me three bottles of the strongest thing you have."

She didn't exactly plan on remembering the next few days.

* * *

Ruby had absolutely no idea where to look for Chess. The only place other than the RWBYC dorm that Chess might've been was her apartment, and Ruby had no idea how to get to it. Then she remembered something.

Yang had been acting weird around Chess throughout the entire issue with Torchwick, and it had started with wherever they had gone. Yang wasn't exactly likely to tell her if she didn't the first time...

But she didn't go alone, did she?

Quickly pulling out her scroll, she found who she wanted and pressed the 'call' button.

"Yo Ruby, what's up?"

"Sun, what's Neptune's scroll number? Or if he's there, can you put him on?"

"Uh, yeah, sure. Just gimme a sec." There was the sound of fumbling, then a different voice spoke up.

"Hey. What's up?" A whispered question barely registered on the mic, before Neptune spoke again. "Oh yeah, did you beat the giant robot thing? And Torchwick?"

"Yeah, yeah we did, but now I need you to send me the address you, Yang and Chess went to. I think Chess might be there, but Yang isn't likely to tell me the address if she didn't the first time."

"Sure, I'll text it to you. That way you'll have my scroll number too, in case you need me."

"Thanks Neptune!" Ruby beamed her brightest smile, then realised he couldn't see her. Facepalming, she focused back on the call.

"No probs." The call ended, and a few seconds later she received a message. Checking it, she dashed towards the address, instantly recognising it.

"Pffft, 'friend'. Dammit Yang..." She wasn't exactly going to forget the club her sister blew up...

* * *

Everything was blurry, and she **still** didn't stop drinking. By this point there was a snowball's chance in Hell that she'd be able to **walk** home, let alone using her semblance. Musing on that fact, she held a flaming finger in front of her face. Sometimes it wasn't half bad having a power to use which required zero concentration... And sometimes it just served as a grim reminder.

 _Hello, darkness, my old friend. I've come to talk with you again._

Extinguishing the flame, she downed the rest of the bottle and slumped back in her seat. She'd moved to a booth ten minutes ago, after Junior saw she was about to fall off her stool. He'd recommended she move to a booth, and she was still lucid enough to agree.

All throughout the time she was drinking, she didn't once wear her trademark grin. After all, that was the Cheshire Cat's grin, and right now, she wasn't Chess.

Right now, she was a little girl from so long ago...

 _Almost ten years now... How time flies..._

Lifting an arm, reached it back to throw the empty bottle in rage and sorrow.

Suddenly an arm grabbed her shoulder. She went to immediately punish the moron who dared touch her, before realising who the arm belonged to. She immediately brought herself out of her memories, and recomposed herself, donning the grin once more.

Chess looked at Ruby, who was still grabbing the steampunk girl's shoulder. Raising an eyebrow, she spoke.

"Heya Ruuuby! Care for a *hic* drink?" With this, she held up the bottle of... whatever it was she was drinking, before realising once more it was empty. "Oh. Welllllll, there's proooob'ly more bottles sooooomewhere around heeeere..." As Chess began looking around for more bottles, Ruby simply grabbed her girlfriend's head and pressed their foreheads together.

"If you ever need to talk. About **anything**. I'm here, okay? Please, don't do this any more. Don't worry me like this any more... Please..." Ruby had tears in her eyes as she stared into Chessur's. The steampunk girl suddenly embraced her girlfriend, tears in her eyes as well. Whispering, she spoke into Ruby's ear.

"I'll try."

Hand in hand, the couple walked out of Junior's club, one with a sympathetic look, and one with a sad, melancholic smile. As Chess stumbled out, being supported by Ruby, she had one last lucid thought before she blacked out.

 _I'm sorry Alys, but this is the path I've chosen. If I have to stop you, I will. I only hope that when the time comes, you'll help me find_ _ **them**_ _. Because if you don't help me fight the ones who could do such things... If you don't help me fight the Red Queen..._ _ **I'll kill you too.**_

* * *

"Was that... her? The one you used to...?"

A nod. She looked melancholic. He looked at her in sympathy.

"I won't tell **her**."

She gave him a thankful look. He patted her shoulder reassuringly. That was how they worked. They didn't put their feelings into words, only small gestures. They had a trust that few could ever hope of having. They trusted each other with their lives, and with secrets they would never tell anyone else.

"Come on Neo. Let's go make some trouble." Roman Torchwick stepped off the bullhead and started walking, while she followed. She wouldn't abandon him, no matter what.

After all, they were partners in crime.

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

 **Man, I just love to tease you guys with a certain mad girl's backstory, don't I? Hahaha, you thought it was due to the plot, BUT IT WAS I, DIO- Uh, never mind. You saw nothing. These are not the droids you're looking for.**

 **Don't judge me, it's 4am in the morning.**

 **As always, hope you enjoyed, and feel free to review and/or PM any questions.**

 **Sm0key out.**


	23. Chapter 20 - Burning the Candle

She'd sent the message, now all she had to do was wait.

"Hey, your friend's doing pretty good!" Yang tuned back in to hear Ruby congratulating Mercury's progress. As she watched the fight, she couldn't help but notice Blake once again falling asleep.

 _Dammit, I really need to talk to her..._

Shaken out of her thoughts by the bell, she also noticed Chess wake up, flailing her arms at the rude awakening. Yang couldn't help but snicker, nor could Ruby. Chess simply smiled her Cheshire grin and shrugged, then walked out of the class with the team. As Yang followed, she eyed Chess suspiciously.

 _Make no mistake, I'll play along. But something's not right about you... And I'm going to find out what._

* * *

"We want you to go to the dance."

"That's ridiculous!" Blake protested.

"Blake, we're worried about you." Yang started, only to be shocked when a voice rang out from above.

"Seconded. It's gotten to the point where **I'm** worried." Chess, for once not smiling, looked pointedly at Blake. For a reason the RWY portion of the team could not fathom, Blake simply glared back with a look of impetuous anger.

"Since when have **you** cared about **anything** , even life itself?" The other three members of the team gasped in shock at Blake's statement, while Chess simply gave a neutral look.

"I have no idea what you're talking about. But that's not why we're here, Blake. We want you to go to the dance. **All** of us." After Chess replied, Weiss looked at Blake and continued where they had left off.

"You can't sleep, you hardly eat, and to be honest your grades have been suffering."

"You think I care about GRADES?! People's **lives** are at stake!" Blake gestured wildly.

"We know, and we still want to know what Torchwick and the White Fang are up to..." Yang, Weiss and Ruby continued to attempt to convince Blake, Chess saw it would be pointless, and evaporated out of the room halfway through the conversation without anyone noticing.

 _Screw it, maybe Yang can talk some sense into... Wait. No, bad idea. If she gets the idea to ask about Lady Luck... I'll have to convince Blake. Dammit..._

* * *

"I've always cared, you know."

Blake jumped at the sudden voice next to her in the secluded corner of the library. Scowling, she turned to face Chess, only to be worried when there was no sign of her signature grin.

"What do you want?" She growled towards the unwanted interruption. Before she could go any further, however, Chess spoke.

"I've always cared about lives. Doesn't matter whether they're friends or strangers. But there comes a point when caring just isn't enough. When people attack me, or those I care about, then they become the enemy... And that's just it. I don't care about the lives of my **enemies** , because all throughout my life, my enemies have been people that have wanted to either torture me, or kill me. Sometimes both... And they **did**." Blake's eyebrows shot up in surprise, but the steampunk girl continued, staring at the desk in front of them. "They tortured me, they tried to break me, make me into something more... fitting for them to use. They changed me, who I am at the core."

Suddenly Chess looked up with a look of such emotion that Blake couldn't help but listen. It was the look of a girl who had seen things nobody should have to see. "When those type of people are your enemies, can you truly ever care about their lives? When someone attacking you becomes associated with those memories, can you truly care about the life of anyone attacking? Why do you think I rarely participate in spars? Because I'm afraid snap, that I'd try and kill them... Like I almost did Cardin."

Blake simply sat there, speechless. What could you really say to a speech like that? Chess took the opportunity and continued.

"I've looked for them, the people that did this me. That made me into a... **weapon**. I nearly destroyed myself in doing so, much like you're doing now." As Blake's expression began to harden, Chess fixed her with a glare. "Let me finish. You know what made me slow down that search, to stop destroying myself?" No answer from Blake, so she continued.

"I almost died. I finally found something, something remotely close to a lead, and I followed it... straight into the Nevermore's nest. All it took was maybe five or ten thugs, and I was bleeding out on the ground in some random alley. If it hadn't been for one kind person calling Vale General, I'd be dead in an alley." Blake still didn't look convinced, but Chess allowed her a chance to speak anyway.

"This isn't the same! This is different! I'm the only one that can do this!"

 **"YOU'RE RIGHT!"** Chess roared. Blake looked surprised, but Chess continued. "You're right. This **is** different. You know why? Because you have people you care about! More importantly, you have people who care about **you**! You have a team, and a family, and friends! I had nothing and no one. No one to weep if I died in that alley. You? You'd be missed by many." There was only silence from Blake, so Chess decided to hammer the point home.

"Tell me one thing. If Roman Torchwick came through that door right now, what would you do?"

"I'd fight him!" Came Blake's swift reply.

"You'd **lose**!" Came Chessur's answer, just as swift. With it came a shove that sent Blake to the ground.

"I can stop him!" Yelled Blake as she stood, throwing a weak punch which Chess easily avoided.

"You can't even stop **me**." Chessur's voice dropped as she restrained herself and pushed Blake once more.

Blake sat there, not wanting to get up through sheer tiredness. As Chess sighed, she reached a hand down to help Blake up. The faunus glared at the hand, before taking it. Standing, Blake continued to glare at Chess as the steampunk girl began to speak once more.

"I'm not telling you to stop. None of us are. Hell, you think I've stopped searching for the people that turned me into a weapon? No. I will find them, and I **will** kill them." That gave Blake pause, and the glare softened as Chess continued. "But I'm not going to let it destroy me now. I have people who care about me now. I have Ruby, and even though you, Weiss and Yang don't particularly like me too much, I know you care about me to some degree." Blake had to nod. Even if they didn't particularly like or even **trust** her sometimes, they still wouldn't want to see her hurt or killed. Or, Blake realised, destroying herself.

"I'm sorry. I just..." Blake started.

"It's okay." Chess interrupted. "I get it completely. Just... don't let it consume you. Go get some rest, some sleep and food... And hey, if you decide to come tomorrow night... I'll make sure to save you a dance. Pretty sure Yang will too." Chess gave Blake a soft smile as she began to walk away. However, she stopped for a second and turned her head back.

"Oh, and Blake? Could you... Could you not tell the others about what I told you? Or... about Lady Luck? I..." Chess looked downcast for a second. "I don't want them to have to deal with that knowledge, not yet. I'll tell them at some point, I just... I want to keep what I have for now."

There was really only one response to a request like that.

Blake nodded.

* * *

"Oh my God, you look BEAUTIFUL!" Yang gushed as Ruby walked through the ballroom doors in a dress and high heels.

"Can we have a serious talk about how Weiss fights in these?!" Came Ruby's response. She then proceeded to wobble her way into the room, much to Yang's amusement. Chess watched with a small smile from the second floor, dressed in a full bespoke suit. Hearing a noise, she turned to see Ozpin himself approaching her in his usual outfit. Raising an eyebrow, she waited for him to be beside her before she commented.

"Surprised you're not in a suit." She was blunt and to the point.

"Technically, I'm always wearing a suit." Chess rolled her eyes at his reply, though she did give a small chuckle. He continued regardless. "Not going to dance with your teammates?"

"No." She smiled sadly. "Teammates they may be, but they're not like me... and I'm not like them. They're all so pure, so..."

"Innocent." He provided the word, and she nodded. "You know, there's no reason you can't join them anyway. I know there's at least one girl down there who won't care how innocent you may or may not be..." The headmaster looked pointedly at Ruby as he said this, which didn't escape her notice.

"Maybe. But it won't last, not for long. They've already started asking questions. Won't be long before they find out who I am, and who knows what they'll think of me then? I'm sure by now you've found out enough about me to know they won't react well." She looked downtrodden as she spoke.

"Hmm. Funny, I wouldn't have thought you were the sort of person to give up so easily... Or make excuses. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to mingle. A headmaster can't be seen showing favouritism, after all." Leaving no time for Chess to reply, Ozpin walked off into the crowd, cane _clacking_ as he went. Scowl on her face, Chess went to find the punch bowl, which seemed the most likely location for Ruby to be.

Meanwhile, Ruby was having her own little chat with the headmaster of Beacon.

Not moments after Ozpin finished his chat with the young Rose, the doors opened one last time.

"You guys are just in time!" Yang cheerfully announced.

Emerald smirked as Mercury gave his response.

"Wouldn't miss it for the **world**."

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

 **Welly welly wells. The conversation between Yang and Blake never happens, and instead you guys get a little bit of Chessur's backstory. (You're welcome.)**

 **In other news, Yang knows something's up, and so she's going on the warpath to find out what.**

 **Blake is starting to become better friends with Chess. Weiss is still a little afraid, but now knows she was being a bitch to Ruby at first - however she still doesn't really like Chess. Yang is suspicious of Chess, and visibly dislikes her.**

 **Looks like the RWBY portion of the team is splitting... DUN DUN DUN.**

 **As always, hope you enjoyed. Feel free to review and/or PM any questions. Remember guys, some of the details of this are still undecided, so if you have an idea, feel free to suggest it, and I might put it in!**

 **Sm0key out.**


	24. Chapter 21 - Dance Dance Infiltration

Junior groaned as he looked around him. Was his luck just this bad, or did these Huntsmen and Huntresses just have it out for him? He saw the twins not getting up, and the thugs had once again been no help. Head pounding, he tried to sit up until a shadow fell over him.

Looking up, he saw the Huntsman that had done this. As the man stared down at him, Junior glared. In response, the Huntsman sighed and said the same thing he had before everything had gone to shit.

"Tell me what you know about Lady Luck." Junior laughed at the simple statement. He still remembered with vivid detail the warning she had imposed upon him, and what the consequences would likely be if he disobeyed. Shaking his head, he replied to his interrogator.

"You won't get anything. Not out of me, and not out of anyone who knows anything. We're more scared of her than any Huntsman. She'll know someone said something, and she'll kill us all... in the most painful ways possible. Anyone who could tell you about her abilities, or her description... You won't get it."

The Huntsman scowled, then growled a final question.

"What **can** you tell me? 'Cause I ain't leaving without something, pal." Junior sighed.

"She's killed hundreds. Thing is, she doesn't kill unless they attack first. At least twenty gambling rings attacked her, and she slaughtered each of them. Only four people have survived one of her slaughters, and that's because they didn't attack."

"Who were they?" Junior sighed.

"Me, the twins over there, and a guy who used to work for me. Haven't seen him in a few months, though."

The Huntsman nodded, then punched Junior in the face, knocking him out.

 _Dammit, still nothing._

Standing up, Qrow sighed and walked out of the club.

* * *

Yang thanked her Uncle, and hung up the scroll. Turning back to the dance, she saw Professor Port bellowing out a laugh, and Professor Goodwitch go to dance with General Ironwood. She watched the dancers for a moment, seeing Jaune move away from Ruby, who was still at the punch bowl like the adorkable little girl she was. Yang shook her head.

 _Some things never change._

After a few minutes, she saw Chess lounge about on the second floor, and narrowed her eyes before slowly turning to look back towards the dancers - Blake in particular. Whatever Chess had said to Blake, had both endeared her to the cat faunus, and gotten her to go to the dance. She smiled as she saw Ruby come up to her in her peripherals.

"You know, I think we really needed this." Taking another look around, she saw Sun dancing with Blake, and Ren - unsurprisingly - dancing with Nora. She also saw Penny doing a little jig near two armed guards, which confused her a little, but she shrugged it off.

"Yeah, and you did a great job planning it too!" Ruby's response shook her out of her thoughts, and brought her back to the conversation on hand.

"Aww, thanks!" At this, she pulled her sister into a near headlock while she continued. "But it wasn't all me. Weiss did a lot too." At this, they both saw Neptune walking up and sitting next to Weiss. Yang, however, sighed despondently. "Tomorrow it's back to work."

"Well, I'm sure we can handle whatever gets thrown at us!" Ruby responded cheerfully, before looking over the railing as her eyes widened in shock and mirth. "Except for that."

The sisters watched as Jaune, clad in a dress, walked up to Pyrrha and held a small conversation. Then, he pulled her hand towards the centre of the room, and Ren and Nora approached.

What came next, was a dance by team JNPR that would be talked about for the rest of the night, and never forgotten by anyone who saw it.

* * *

People were still dancing, and Ruby **really** wasn't a dance-y type of girl. So, that being said, she stepped out for some air, unaware that Chess had followed to keep an eye on her. Not long after, Ruby (and therefore Chess) both saw the masked figure leaping across Beacon rooftops. Ruby was about to run after the shadowy figure when Chess evaporated in front of her.

"Ruby, stop." Shocked, Ruby opened her mouth to speak while raising an arm to point in the direction of the figure. "I know, I'm going to follow. You need to go back inside and tell the rest of the team, and change your shoes. Or do you really, honestly think you can fight in heels like Weiss does, especially at your speeds?" Ruby's mouth slowly closed, and her arm lowered, but she still had a worried look in her eyes.

"I can't just leave you." Ruby put as much conviction and worry into that one sentence as she could, but Chess didn't care.

"Have some faith, Ruby. I can hold them off long enough for you to get the team, or even some of the professors. Hell, bring Ironwood or Ozpin if you want. Just do it fast, and everything will be fine, got it?" Ruby nodded, and rushed back inside, while Chess turned toward the still-running figure. Evaporating, she began to give chase.

* * *

Not long after, Chess arrived at the foot of the CCT tower, and glanced around. Seeing a knocked out guard in a nearby bush, she rushed into the tower itself. Finding more guards, she took the elevator up, to find an empty floor.

"Hmm... Tweedle-Dee, and Tweedle-Dum. Places to hide, but none to run. So come out, come out, wherever you are. Everything'll be fine, I won't go **too** far." In response to her little rhyme, a figure rose out from behind one of the terminals and turned to her. The steampunk girl stopped dead.

That hair. Those **eyes**...

"... **I'LL KILL YOU!** " Lunging, a pair of cards appeared in Chessur's hands as she went to decapitate the other woman. However, the intruder leapt back as a bow appeared in her hands after her legs glowed red.

 _Dust-infused clothing. Closest she can get._

Chess kept charging forward, tanking the three arrows that exploded in her face and absorbing the explosions. However, blinded as she was for a split second, she missed the hail of ice shards headed for her face. Seeing them, and with only a split second to react, she evaporated on the spot, letting them pass through. About to give chase, she paused when she heard a hiss, and in a moment she would regret, looked behind her. She saw Ozpin in the elevator, and turned with a smirk...

Only to find her opponent gone.

A pause.

"No. NO NO **NO!** " Furious, Chess stormed around the room, form unstable. Parts of her were evaporating at random, while flames seemed to be leaking from her eyes, and frost was seeping from her fingers - when they weren't evaporated.

Slowly, she realised that her chance was gone, and she slumped to her knees, as glowing tears that seemed to spark and crackle rolled down her cheeks. Ozpin approached and pulled the sobbing girl into his arms, where she cried out her pain and frustration into his jacket.

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

 **Well. Yang's roped in Qrow to help her find out more about the mysterious Lady Luck. Note that in Chapter 6, Qrow left before Ozpin actually mentioned that Chess was Lady Luck. All he knew was that they were questioning a new student. Ozpin just never told Qrow after that, because it ceased to matter.**

 **Although Qrow may be a smart cookie, he's also drunk a lot of the time, and tends to occasionally miss some things, hence why he hasn't remembered a meeting from months ago which he was only in for a few seconds.**

 **In other news, Chess is the one to fight Cinder this time, and she looks familiar...**

 **Chessur's form gets unstable under extreme emotional stress. That's all I'm going to say about her state at the end of the chapter. I'll leave the rest a mystery.**

 **Meanwhile, Ruby fetched Ozpin instead of Ironwood, being more comfortable with Beacon's headmaster. He told her to stay behind while he personally dealt with it.**

 **She would've followed anyway, but it's Ozpin. He used words to get her to agree to stay. He's kinda manipulative like that.**

 **Hope you enjoyed the chapter, as always feel free to review and/or PM me any questions.**

 **Sm0key out.**


	25. Chapter 22 - Debriefing

Four very tense individuals stood in the office of Beacon's headmaster. There was the man himself, who - quite unusually - didn't have his mug of coffee with him. There was General Ironwood, who had been called up in regards to the breach in security regarding his soldiers. Chess was there, of course, because she had been the one to fight the intruder.

Finally, there was Qrow, because Chess had clearly known the intruder, and from what Ozpin could gather it seemed to be the one who assaulted Amber. This necessitated Qrow being there to find out everything they could on the assailant.

All three of the adults stared at Chess as she shrunk into a ball on her chair. Every now and again they would hear a gentle sob coming from the area she was seated.

"Miss Chessur."

She looked up at Ozpin, and all the headmaster could see was a broken, lost little girl. Despite this, he continued saying what needed to be said. "You clearly know this attacker. We need to know who she is, and what she is planning, if you know it." Chess simply shook her head, tucking her head down into her chest again. Qrow began to get impatient and started forward while speaking.

"Look kid, I don't care if she killed your damn parents or something, this is bigger than you! This is about the safety of the wo-" The veteran Huntsman was silenced as the three adults felt the temperature in the room suddenly drop, quickly going to below freezing. Snow seemed to appear out of nowhere, forming a small blizzard, and as two of the adults prepared for a fight with whoever was doing this, Ozpin merely raised an eyebrow.

Chess suddenly looked up at Qrow with a look of pure, unadulterated hatred. Even Ironwood looked unnerved. When she spoke, her tone was almost as cold as the blizzard surrounding them.

" **Bigger than me? Bigger than me?! YOU HAVE NO IDEA! NO IDEA WHAT SHE DID!** " She was approaching Qrow, screaming the words at him to be heard over the snowstorm that was raging inside the small office.

"We've all lost people! GET OVER IT!" Qrow screamed back. Suddenly, the snowstorm stopped, and Chess was right in front of Qrow with a neutral expression on her face.

"Lost people?" She let out a small, hollow chuckle. "There's only one person I've lost."

Suddenly, a swarm of cards was slamming into Qrow from every side, and before he could even begin to transform his weapon into the signature scythe, he felt his Aura rapidly dropping. Then, just as quickly as it had started, it stopped, with Chess holding one arm up and a torrent of cards behind her. She looked directly into Qrow's eyes and what he saw chilled him to the bone. This wasn't the broken, lost little girl any more. This was a killer. This... This was a monster.

"I lost myself." With that, Chess went to swing her hand down and finish him. Suddenly, a hand grabbed her wrist and stopped her movement before it could kill Qrow.

"I think that's enough, Miss Chessur." Ozpin didn't sound angry, just... tired. She looked between him and Qrow for a long second, before sighing. The cards fell back into her clothes, burying themselves where they couldn't be seen. She sat down, looking every bit as tired as Ozpin sounded.

Ironwood was still on guard, and Qrow was as far away from her as physically possible in the small office. Ozpin simply sat in his chair and started talking once more.

"Miss Chessur. I will make this very simple and easy. Do you know her name, her plans, or her whereabouts?"

"No, no, and no. If I did, I'd be killing her instead of talking with you." Ozpin sighed.

"Miss Chessur, how do you know this intruder? Is she someone from your days as Lady Luck?" As Chess shook her head and opened her mouth, she was cut off by Qrow.

"WHAT?! SHE'S LADY LUCK?! GOD DAMMIT OZ, DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT SHE'S DONE?!" Qrow was furious. This was Lady Luck. This killer, who had been inches away from killing him, was dating his niece. Yang needed to know. She needed to get Ruby far away from here.

"I'm aware she **was** a criminal, yes. However, now she is one of my students, and is no longer on that career path."

"God dammit, Oz, she's killed HUNDREDS!" At this, Ozpin's eyebrows raised slightly as he turned to her.

"Is this true?" Chess waited a second before speaking.

"I haven't killed anyone who hasn't tried to kill me first." Seeing Ozpin's frown, she relented. "But yes. That number is probably in the low hundreds. People really don't like it when you keep taking their money through gambling, but hey. A girl's gotta get by somehow."

Qrow looked ready to explode, Ironwood watched on with interest and caution, and Ozpin simply sighed and rubbed his temples with his fingers.

"Qrow. You are not to tell anyone about this. **Including** your nieces." Just as Qrow looked ready to interrupt, Ozpin levelled him with a glare rivalling Chessur's before continuing. "James, the same goes to you. Miss Chessur, you never did mention: is this intruder someone from your days as Lady Luck?" Chess shook her head. "Then where do you know this woman from?"

There was a long moment of silence, before Chess shook her head once more, and began to speak.

"I'm not going to tell you the whole truth. That's too personal. But I'll tell you this. She **made** me into a killer, a weapon. She changed who I am at the core... She changed my **soul**." At this, Ozpin tilted his head.

"What makes you say that?" Chess held up a hand before her in response.

"She unlocked my Aura just before she started... changing me. When she first unlocked it, it was a bright green. Then, as she... did what she did... it changed. Now, it's this." As Chess flared her Aura, the three men could see it was a shade of purple so dark it was almost black. "She changed my soul, which in turn..." As she trailed off, Ozpin finished the sentence.

"Changed your Aura." She nodded. "Hmm."

There was silence for a minute, before Chess spoke.

"What now?" Ozpin was roused from his thoughts.

"Well, I believe you have somebody waiting for you, and your missions are being assigned tomorrow, so I would suggest you get some sleep. James, You should perhaps check all is right with the CCT, and run a thorough system check on everything from personal scrolls to your main defense grid. Qrow, I'm going to need you to go back out into the field and try to find any information on who the intruder is, and who she has with her."

They all nodded, with some looking less satisfied than others, and left the office via different ways. Qrow flew out the window in his avian form, Chess evaporated, and Ironwood took the elevator. Sighing, Ozpin leaned back in his chair.

"Why can nothing be simple?"

* * *

Chess didn't bother to go back to the dance. Instead, she decided to avoid the team until tomorrow. Evaporating, she appeared in her apartment in Vale and headed straight for the liquor cabinet. Pulling out several bottles, she uncorked a bottle of vodka and immediately started taking large sips. She didn't plan on enjoying the alcohol, not tonight. No, tonight she just wanted to forget everything.

She knew that Ruby would know where she was, but Chess had only ever evaporated Ruby to and from the apartment, so while Ruby had indeed seen the apartment, she had no idea how to actually get there.

An hour and a half later, and Chess was on the verge of passing out. Looking at the almost empty bottle of vodka in her hand, she shrugged and finished it before placing it next to the other bottle she'd gone through. Falling onto her bed, the steampunk girl almost immediately passed out, and began to dream.

A dream of so long ago.

* * *

 _"Is she ready?"_

 _"Yes. You know, I can't imagine what she would think if she knew you were doing this. I really am doing you a large favour."_

 _"Oh Arthur. I'll make sure to make it worth your while..."_

 _"Stop. I will call in my favour when I deem it necessary. Do not try and seduce me like I'm one of those two pets you drag around."_

 _"Hm, very well. I'll handle the Aura. You start the procedure when I give the signal."_

 _"Very well."_

 _Footsteps._

 _She started to cry._

 _"Shh, this won't hurt. It's what comes next that may... sting a little." A cruel smirk. Mirth shining in glowing amber eyes._

 _"Get on with it." A roll of the amber eyes. A hand, placed on a small chest._

 _"For it is in passing that we achieve absolute power. Through this, we become severed from the weak to become a beacon of radiating fear. Infinite in power and unbound by death, I release your soul, and by my hand enslave thee."_

 _A small pause, a green glow._

 _"Start the procedure."_

 _Then, for so long, pain. Indescribable pain._

 _Days? Weeks? Months? It didn't matter. A very, very long time, with nothing but agony._

 _The girl felt herself slipping away. Her soul, changing. Her mind, breaking._

 _She was going insane._

 _Her name..._

 _What was her name again...?_

* * *

Gasping, Chess bolted upright to a sight she'd seen a few times before. Sighing, she began to undo the work she'd accidentally done during the night.

It was only the nights when she had nightmares that she woke up to a room filled with ice and snow.

She looked at her scroll, which miraculously hadn't frozen during the night, and saw it was a few hours before she needed to be back at Beacon. Once she'd gotten rid of the ice, she sat down on her couch, and stared at the wall for a few seconds.

Then, she began to cry.

As tears rolled down her cheeks, she couldn't even do so much as think. Chess just wanted to curl up into a ball and stop existing, if only for a little while.

She didn't really know how long she sat there, sobbing into her knees, but she looked up at some point and realised she needed to get ready to leave. Chess slowly got up from the couch, made sure she looked normal, and went to the kitchen. As she ate a quickly-prepared breakfast, she thought of what she'd say to the team, and to Ruby. Sighing, she accepted the truth of the matter. She couldn't tell them, couldn't tell **her**. Not without more questions being raised, questions that she didn't want to answer. That wouldn't stop them, not all of them. Blake and Ruby might accept it, and not pry, but Weiss and Yang wouldn't stop until they got answers.

Answers which they wouldn't like.

Shaking her head to clear it of negative thoughts, she sighed once more before evaporating, leaving her apartment.

As she appeared back in the dorms, she arrived just in time to see Ruby putting a dog in a backpack.

Wait, what?

"You know what, I'm not gonna ask." At this Ruby turned around so fast that if she'd kept going there would've been a mini-tornado.

"CHESS!" Leaping at her girlfriend, Ruby instantly crushed her in a hug. Or at least, she tried. She didn't really have the strength to crush someone in a hug, despite wielding a giant metal scythe. Chess simply laughed and pulled her girlfriend in for a kiss. Feeling Ruby relax in her arms, she pulled back after a few seconds and grinned.

"Hello, little Rose." Ruby blushed and hugged her once more before suddenly pulling back and hitting Chess in the shoulder.

"WHERE WERE YOU?! Me and Blake and Weiss and... okay maybe not Yang but anyway the three of us were looking all over for you and we couldn't find you so we went to Ozpin and he said that you might need some space but I remembered about your apartment but I didn't know how to get there and I was so worried and is that alcohol I sm-" Before she could continue any more with her insanely long rant Chess covered Ruby's mouth with a hand.

"Not right now. We're late for the mission assignments." Ruby's eyes went wide and suddenly she grabbed Chessur's hand and bolted at the full speed of her semblance. Quickly getting used to the sensation of travelling nearly the speed of sound, Chess looked at her girlfriend as they sped through the halls...

Right before Ruby took a corner too hard and left a Chess-sized dent in the opposite wall.

Deciding that she didn't want to die by the time they got there, she quickly let go of Ruby's hand and evaporated in front of her, picking up the red reaper as they collided. Before Ruby could even try to get down, Chess evaporated them both into the back of the main hall. Putting down her girlfriend, Chess smirked at the massive blush on Ruby's face before leading her over to their team and JNPR. While Weiss and Yang looked at Chess with suspicion, JNPR and Blake merely looked with curiosity. Disregarding all their looks, Chess stood next to Ruby and began to focus on the front.

No matter what she did, she couldn't shake a feeling that this mission wasn't going to be good.

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

 **And that marks the end of the Act. The next Act will focus primarily on the Breach, and possibly on some of Chessur's past. As such, it may end up being shorter than this, I honestly have no idea.**

 **Chess doesn't remember a lot from this 'procedure', because she's suppressed the memories. Not REpressed, SUPpressed. She knows they're there, she just doesn't focus on them, EVER. They're what drove her insane, and visiting those memories is dangerous to her already fragile mental state.**

 **As always, hope you enjoyed, and feel free to review and/or PM any questions.**

 **Sm0key out.**


	26. POLL - You Choose The Endingish!

**Alright. So.**

 **I have two endings in mind for Lady Luck, at least in terms of the Fall of Beacon arc.**

 **One, is where one or more of the main 'good guy' cast will die. This could be Chess, it could be Ruby, it could be anyone from teams RWBYC or JNPR. It could be Ozpin. It could be anyone. However, everyone will move on and have a** _ **kind**_ **of happy ending...ish. Happy in that they go on to live their lives and such. The remaining characters will defeat Salem and learn to cope with their loss, and will move on.**

 **The second is where everyone lives, but not necessarily everyone goes on to live their happy lives. This ending would extend the story much farther, but also bring in some really dark themes. This could be anything from mutilation to suicide. Either way, it won't be sunshine and rainbows. However, towards the actual end, after they've defeated Salem and such, they will get their happy ending.**

 **I'm not saying everyone's going to survive the fight with Salem, just that everyone (including Pyrrha) will survive the Fall of Beacon. Mind you, the fight with Salem is a long way off, both in Lady Luck and Canon RWBY, so I'd have to wait to see what RoosterTeeth reveals in the show before I write the fight against Salem. For all I know, they'll bring out some awesome new power, or Ruby will learn to use her Silver Eye Power of Ultimate Bullshit, and the fight will be won in a Deus Ex Machina move.**

 **Either way, I may actually make everyone (who makes it to that point) survive the fight with Salem. Depends how I'm feeling.**

 **But I'm rambling. Point is, there's a poll on my profile to see whether you want one or more character/s to die during or before the Fall of Beacon.**

 **I'll also be counting votes left in reviews or PM'd to me.**

 **Let's see what y'all choose.**


	27. Chapter 23 - Mountain Glenn

**LADY LUCK**

 **ACT V - FIELD TRIP**

* * *

 _This is a joke. This has to be a joke. This can't be for real, right? RIGHT?!_

No such luck for Ruby Rose, as she stared dumbfounded at the Huntsman they were 'shadowing'. She imagined her team had similar expressions of horror, and a quick glance at Chess showed that yes, even **she** was about to weep horrified tears of hopelessness.

 _Why, for the love of Crescent Rose, did it have to be Doctor Oobleck?!_

"Hello girls! Who's ready to fight for their lives?" Oobleck was evidently completely oblivious to their utter horror… Or maybe he just didn't care.

"We're doomed." Yang was the first to speak, but Oobleck had already walked away at that point.

"Yup… Is it too late to go with team JNPR?" Chess asked the team leader, to which the response was a - rather ineffectual - punch to the arm.

"Come on guys! I'm sure it can't be… that bad…" Ruby slowly deflated as the sentence went on. Even she knew they had to be the unluckiest of the first years to get Doctor Oobleck as their Huntsman.

"Yeah, I'm liking Chess' plan right about now." Blake put in her two cents, only to receive a glare from Ruby. As the team started making their way toward the awaiting Bullhead, Yang added her own snippy remark.

"Sorry Blakey. If we suffer, you suffer with us." A sigh was heard from Blake's direction before the team heard Jaune call out to them. Knowing of JNPR's wariness involving her, Chess stayed a bit further back than the rest of RWBYC. As Chess watched her team converse with their friends, she felt an odd feeling. She'd felt it once before, but this time it was much more muted…

Looking around, she spotted a single bird sitting on top of a light post. Smirking, she gave it a cheeky little wave before throwing a gravity dust-infused card at it. Amused, she watched as it dodged, only to be distracted once more by Oobleck calling out from the Bullhead. As she started heading towards the speedy teacher, she glanced back once more to see her team following her... and a certain bird no longer there.

* * *

Mountain Glenn. A failed project, doomed by the greed of others.

 _Oh, the similarities. Maybe I could live here. It'd do wonders for my construction skills._

"Chess? You okay?" Ruby's voice came from beside her as they prepared to drop. Changing the wistful smirk back to the Cheshire grin, Chess winked.

Then she backflipped out of a Bullhead 300 metres off the ground. At this point, her team was pretty much used to her shenanigans, so nobody even blinked an eye at her stunt. As she plummeted to the ground, she adopted a classic 'thinker' pose - albeit upside-down - and set to wondering the best way to land. Deciding, she suddenly flipped the right way up and proceeded to float the remaining 5 metres down to the ground, while twirling like a ballerina.

Suddenly she heard clapping, as Ruby jumped down from the now-descended Bullhead. As the rest of the team jumped down, they all did their unique equivalent of an eye-roll. That is, Weiss huffed, Yang shook her head with a smile, and Blake actually did roll her eyes in a very Blake-ish way. Smirking, Chess quickly pulled in Ruby and went to give the now-blushing girl a kiss, when she was rudely reminded of the sixth member of the expedition.

"NO TIME FOR THAT LADIES! WE'RE NOT HERE TO MAKE OUT! RUBY ROSE! WHY DID YOU BRING YOUR BAG WHEN I SPECIFICALLY TOLD YOU TO LEAVE IT AT SCHOOL?!" Oobleck was shouting, despite the fact he was literally less than half a metre away from their faces, having butted his head in before the couple could kiss. It would appear he had two volumes: a normal volume - which he almost never used - and his 'teaching' volume, where he would shout everything as though one was on another continent.

"U-uh..." To be fair, Ruby did **try** to form a response, but was ever-so-slightly interrupted by a Corgi poking its head out of the aforementioned backpack. A moment of silence followed, until the cloaked Huntress-in-training decided to stage whisper to the corgi. "Get back in the bag..."

Chess could only facepalm, followed quickly by Weiss, Yang, and even Blake - although Chess had noticed that Blake had quite obviously stepped away from the dog. Of course, as an upstanding member of team RWBYC, Chess would never, **ever** make fun of Blake for being afraid of an adorable corgi...

Instead, she just directed a shit-eating grin at Blake, who scowled in return.

Meanwhile, Doctor Oobleck had begun ranting on how useful a dog was, and how much of a genius Ruby was for bringing the drooling mutt.

"Heh. **I'm** a genius." Ruby proudly stated while everyone shot her a deadpan glare.

"So. What are your orders Doctor?" Blake simply decided to stop wasting time.

"Ah yes. Straight to the chase, I like it! As you have been informed, the South-East area has been marked as a recent hotspot for Grimm activity! Now there are several possible explanations for this behaviour, one of which being... Grimm." At this, everyone except Chess looked confused.

"U-uh... what?" Ruby decided to speak up, while Chess was busy inspecting her nails.

"A creature of Grimm, approximately one hundred metres from our current position." Everyone in RWBYC turned to see a lone Beowolf appear from behind the corner of a building. As most of the team members went to pull out their various weapons - with the exception of Chess, who was still busy picking out dirt from underneath her nails - Doctor Oobleck whispered for them to wait. Before he could explain, Chess finished cleaning her nails and decided to steal the Doctor's thunder. Maybe that'd teach him not to interrupt.

"Grimm are attracted to negative feelings like hate. Hate that the White Fang would feel for humans. Therefore, wherever we find the biggest congregation of Grimm, we'll find a certain terrorist organisation. Better to follow this one to the pack, then follow the pack to the Fang."

"Very good miss Chessur! Excellent deductions!" Oobleck didn't seem annoyed at all, much to Chess' chagrin.

"Maybe, but it doesn't matter anymore." At everyone's questioning glances, Chess elaborated. "The entire pack's rounded the corner, and they've seen us." The rest of her team rapidly spun around, and this time Oobleck didn't object when they took out their weapons.

"What do we do?" Ruby asked the Doctor. Oobleck merely took a sip of his... what was in his thermos anyhow? Coffee? Tea? Liquid cocaine? Whatever it was, it never seemed to run out, and made the man almost a match for Ruby's speed.

Personally, Chess thought it was a mix of all three. Regardless, after Oobleck took his sip, he replied to Ruby's question.

"Show me what you're made of."

* * *

"Good fight, team."

"Chess, you didn't do anything!"

"Oh, little Rose. I provided the ever-important moral support."

As Ruby glared at Chess - who was currently sitting on top of a ruined wall - the steampunk girl merely shrugged. Ruby stormed off while Chess let out a snicker of amusement.

Chess lay down on the wall and stared into the sky, daydreaming. While she did so, she had a single playing card rotate slowly above her, as though it was in zero-gravity.

"Miss Chessur." Chess turned sharply, and barely managed to stop the card a hair's breadth away from Doctor Oobleck's nose. "Apologies for startling you. I needed to speak with you alone."

"Then speak." Chess was not a big fan of Oobleck, and by the expression on his face he wasn't exactly being unwary around her either. Surprisingly, he wasn't yelling this time, but speaking at a low volume. He also wasn't speaking at Mach 10.

"Let me make something clear, Miss Chessur. I do not trust you. I have been informed by Professor Ozpin as to your past, and I do not have the same faith in you that he does. So I tell you this. If you make any untoward move toward any student, or toward any staff members, then I will be forced to act against you. I do not know why you chose to become a Huntress, but I do think that you care deeply for Miss Rose. Hence, should you do **anything** to act against Beacon Academy in any way, there will be **dire** consequences. Not just for you, but for Miss Rose. So this will be your warning, Miss Chessur. Stay on our side. For your sake... and that of Miss Rose. That is all." With this, the green-haired man walked away, leaving a glowering Chess to glare at his back.

Fuming, Chess saw something in the distance and suddenly grinned. Finally, something to burn off her anger, and the built up energy. Smiling her Cheshire grin, she stalked off into the distance.

* * *

As most of team RWBYC met up together after a few hours, they noticed the absence of their fifth member. Weiss could only sigh in exasperation.

"Where's Chess?" The resident ice-queen asked.

"Rubes? Any idea?" Yang questioned.

"Sorry, I've been busy killing Grimm. Last I saw, she was on that wall over there."

"Hmm. This can't be good." Blake frowned as she spoke. They all knew of Chess and her tendency to... cause trouble. Considering this wasn't the first time, they decided to enact a plan they had concocted a while ago in case they lost Chess and couldn't find her. However, just as they were about to split up, Doctor Oobleck appeared beside them. None of them could figure out how he got there so fast without them noticing, but it didn't matter.

"I know where your fifth team-mate is."

Amongst the exclamations and questions promptly flung at him, he simply raised a hand. Stopping, the team followed him as he walked away, toward the edge of the city. When they got to a good vantage point, the four members of the team present could only stare in absolute shock.

"It would appear miss Chessur got... bored."

The members could only stare at the slowly dissolving remains of the behemoths that Chess had apparently taken down. Goliaths were notoriously hard to kill for seasoned Huntsmen, and for Chess to have taken down **five**... That kind of power was ludicrous. One was literally in frozen pieces, one ablaze. The other three had missing limbs, tusks, and in one case a head. Chess had **decapitated** a **Goliath**.

The steampunk girl in question suddenly appeared in front of them, evaporating out of thin air. Before the rest of her team could react, she fell over, exhausted. Laying on the ground and staring up at the sky, she spoke between gasps for breath.

"Hey... guys... what's... up...?"

At this, Yang looked shaken, Weiss looked much the same, Blake looked to be in a state of shock, and Ruby simply stared. Oobleck only frowned and shook his head.

"So... Not... much...?"

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

 **Hey guys! Sorry I took so long, but life's been a bitch, and I've kinda been dealing with monumental amounts of shit lately. Sadly, the news doesn't get better.**

 **Sorry to say, but this Act will only have 4 chapters, each under 2k words each. I am sorry, but my motivation for writing has dwindled as shit has happened in the last couple months. I do plan to finish this story, as I despise people that just leave their stories unfinished and never come back to them. I also despise people who just give up on their stories without having a good reason (meaning them being literally dead).**

 **Anyway, I hope you can forgive me, and I hope you do enjoy this Act of Lady Luck. I'll only be releasing the chapters on a schedule of one per week, probably on a Saturday or something. I dunno exactly when, but I won't let 2 weeks go by without posting a chapter.**

 **In the meantime, if someone wants to do fanart or write their own stories about Chess, feel free! If there's something you're not sure on about her appearance, or her backstory, or her abilities, then feel free to ask. As long as it's already been revealed in this fic, I'll clarify anything you like!**

 **Feel free to review and/or PM any questions.**

 **Now, it's 6:00am and I haven't slept in a stupid amount of days that you probably wouldn't believe.**

 **Sm0key out.**


	28. Chapter 24 - A Moonlit Walk

_"WHERE IS SHE?!" The angered voice came. The girl hid further into her little nook, cowering away from the lit hallway._

 _"W-we don't kno-" He didn't get any further. Not even a scream as he turned to dust. The girl squeezed further into her nook. Footsteps going further down the hall. The girl stepped out. She ran to the nearest door and ducked in. A guard, female. She turned in surprise, but the girl already had the razor prepared._

 _A quick slice, and the girl was done. No idea where she was. She noticed the screens, started thinking. Looked at the guard. Saw a knife. Better than the razor, at any rate. Picking it up, she noticed something. It was special. She could feel it, feel what was in it. She squeezed it tighter. Back to the screens, as she saw_ _ **her**_ _. The tormentor, the torturer._

 _The monster._

 _Anger surged, and the room was covered in ice. Her hands, frosting. She could feel the knife feeding her, feeding the cold. Glancing at the dead guard once more, she noticed something. A nametag. Taking it, she ran. Ducked through hallways and rooms, until she reached it. The exit._

 _Bursting through, she took her first free breath in so long. Then she heard the clicks of guns. Too many to count. So many guards. She was scared. Frustrated, afraid, on the verge of giving up. Then she made a wish, and wished with all her might. A wish to be anywhere else. Smoke, mist, rising around her. Bullets, but nothing to hit. Both there and not there, trapped in between reality and nothingness. She wished harder, and harder, until she felt the knife seem to_ _ **feed**_ _her. The mist swirled once again, and she was somewhere. On a roof, in a city. So much white, it hurt her eyes. To distract herself, she looked at the nametag._

 _Hm, a name she could use. She had forgotten her own, so she may as well take the name of a dead girl. Such an innocent name... She memorised it, and walked to the nearest hotel. Picked a pocket on instinct and muscle memory. She vaguely remembered stealing before. She paid in cash at the hotel, and they asked for her name. A small smile, and she used the name on the nametag._

 _Jade._

* * *

Chess woke, managing not to make too much noise. She barely remembered anything from before, more vague impressions than anything solid. But she remembered that day vividly, the day she escaped. The day she landed in Atlas with nothing but a knife and a nametag.

Chess evaporated to the roof and sat down on the edge, watching the stars. Smiling sadly, she took off her hat, and reached in. Pulling out the object, she sat and stared at it for a while. The nametag still had decade-old blood on it, and the writing had almost worn off. It was a relic of a time she no longer wanted to remember. Sometimes she wondered about that guard, and what her life might've been like. She'd looked like she was only just out of being a teenager, so had she known what was going on? Chess doubted it.

With a sad smile, she tipped her hand sideways, and watched the nametag twirl through the air as it fell from the skyscraper.

She had a team now, friends. Someone she cared about. Once her tormentor was dead... maybe then Chess could lead a normal life.

 _"Oh Arthur. I'll make sure to make it worth your while..."_

But she hadn't been alone, had she? Others had helped her. Someone named Arthur, and she remembered them mentioning someone else. Remembered them saying 'she' didn't know what was going on. Someone was in charge of her tormentor... And they would **pay**.

Suddenly a flash of white amongst the rubble far below interrupted her vengeful thinking. Chess smiled as she saw the White Fang member round a corner. It was time to... How did it go? Ah yes, that's right.

* * *

The rest of RWBYC (and Doctor Oobleck) woke to the sound of explosions from several blocks away. Rousing themselves, they rushed outside to see what was going on. Arriving at the scene, they saw Chess standing above the charred (though surprisingly not dead) bodies of about ten White Fang grunts. They collectively sighed and shook their heads.

"Wha- Oh, heeeeeey guys... I went for an enthusiastic walk through the town." As she said this, a building collapsed next to them, encasing them all in a thin layer of dust... The regular, non-weaponised kind. Chess smirked, and Blake couldn't resist.

"A walk where you beat the crap out of a bunch of White Fang members and nearly levelled half a city block?"

"A **very** enthusiastic walk." Chess smiled innocently as she replied. Once more, the rest of the group collectively shook their heads and sighed in exasperation.

Suddenly, the team (and their teacher) heard a distinct cracking noise. Glancing around, nobody could figure out where it came from, until without warning the pavement fell out from under Chess' feet.

Falling, Chess prepared to use her semblance to slow herself and land safely. Before she could, however, a piece of the pavement hit her in the back of the head, and everything went black.

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

 **Otherwise known as the chapter in which Chess takes inspiration from a sassy, sexually frustrated, homicidal vampire. Round of applause for those who get the reference, both in the chapter, and the title itself.**

 **I know it's a short chapter, but it reveals the truth about Chess and her 'name'. If you'll remember, in chapter 2, she told Ozpin her name was Jade. This is why.**

 **This chapter also reveals how she discovered her semblance, which will be important later on.**

 **In other news, I may be starting a new fanfic soon. Yes, I know, Team CMEO is still on hiatus, and this update for LL took months, but I thought of a new OC and actually felt the urge to write again. I'm not gonna lie, I've lost all motivation to write Team CMEO, and it's slowly getting harder to write this as well. I'm going to finish Lady Luck, regardless of whether I finish Team CMEO, because I both really like Chess as a character, and I've put far too much effort into planning both her and this story to give up on it.**

 **However, I do feel a slight urge to write again when thinking about my new OC, so I may end up writing another fanfic. My only issue at the moment is how to get him into Beacon, though as I wrote that sentence I came up with an idea... Hmm... Anyway, I'm not gonna confirm anything, but keep an eye out for it just in case I do write it.**

 **This OC is gonna take heavy inspiration from Dante and Nero from DMC4, as I just finished that game 2 days ago. God I loved it. He's also gonna take inspiration from several other half-thought-up OC's I've toyed around with in the past, so there's gonna be more than just a carbon-copy of Dante or Nero.**

 **Anyway, I'm rambling. If it happens, it happens. If not, at least I can use the OC in this fic or something, I dunno. Welp, I'm gonna leave it here. Hope you enjoyed the chapter (short though it may be), and feel free to review, and/or PM any questions.**

 **Sm0key out.**


	29. Chapter 25 - Choo Choo

"Uhh, it's a girl?" A faint voice next to her.

"Wha-?" A pause. "OH, FUCK ALL KINDS OF DUCK! Um... Uh... Alright. Put her somewhere comfortable, and very, **very** far away. We absolutely do **not** want her waking up in a bad mood." At this, Chess suddenly backflipped and landed on her feet with a bow, ignoring the sudden clicks of guns as they were aimed her way.

"Too late, Jack!" She chimed in with a nickname. After all, he kinda reminded her of the knave. Chess watched as Roman Torchwick visibly paled, and started slowly backing away. Before he could take another step, she evaporated so she was back to back with him, smirking as she leaned against his now-frozen form.

"Say, Jack, when I came here on a little mission, I never expected to run into a handsome ginger devil and his thugs! Wanna tell me why?" As Roman opened his mouth, what came out surprised Chess, and to some extent himself.

"Would a pretty little girl like yourself believe I was out on a midnight stroll?" At this, Chess was taken aback, but still replied.

"I would... If it was the truth. Come on, Jack! Out with it..." Still with the playful demeanour, Chess giggled, and backflipped over Roman so she was staring into his eyes. Then, dropping the happy-go-lucky attitude for a second, she continued. "And don't even think about lying this time." The look in her eyes stopped the mastermind dead as he sweat-dropped. However, he got an idea, and as he opened his mouth he slowly shifted his arm.

"Well, you see... I, uh... NOW!" With this, he shot the round in his cane directly in front of him, hitting the concrete and causing dust and smoke to fly everywhere; he knew better than to aim at her, he'd learned from the incident at the docks. At the same time, dozens of White Fang that had surrounded the pair all fired at the cloud of dust and smoke as Roman dashed towards the train. Ducking inside, he quickly raced toward the front. As he came to the carriage third from the front, he paused. Turning, he spoke.

"Neo, she's here; we're launching the train now. You might have to fight her. Will you be okay?" At this, Neo nodded and mimed a reverse explosion with one hand. He knew what she was trying to say. "Just make sure you save enough Aura, alright?" At this she rolled her eyes, but still smiled and nodded all the same. Continuing, Roman reached the front and started the train. Hearing more explosions, he assumed (correctly, as it would turn out) that Lady Luck's team had arrived to help her out.

"My day just keeeeps getting better, doesn't it?"

* * *

The rest of team RWBYC raced around the corner to see quite a few White Fang bodies, surrounding a faintly smiling Chess. For a moment they feared the worst, but thankfully they were all still breathing. However, they could all see the extent of injuries on the poor faunus, and it was doubtful they would ever have the same amount of mobility again.

Regardless, the team and Doctor Oobleck quickly boarded the now-moving train. Moving across the top, they stopped upon discovering something.

"Doctor Oobleck, what is that?" Asked Ruby, ever the innocent soul. However, it was not the Doctor that answered, but Chess.

"That, little Rose, is a bomb." Before she could continue, they felt the train car disconnect, and quickly moved to the next one. Upon seeing the car explode and create a hole in the tunnel roof, Chess scowled, and began speaking again. "I know what they're doing. Grimm are going to come through the holes, and 20 points to whichever house guesses where this tunnel leads."

At this Oobleck paled, and whispered the answer under his breath.

"Central Vale..."

Upon hearing this, everyone else on team RWBYC paled, and turned to rush to the front of the train. Whatever happened, they _had_ to stop this train.

* * *

As RWBYC moved across the top of the train, they came across swarms of White Fang members moving to stop them. Some even started boarding the Paladins being transported, and moved to intercept the teenagers and their teacher. Suddenly Oobleck started yelling over the wind.

"Miss Chessur! Take Miss Belladonna and Miss Schnee, and go down below! We can handle things up here! Get to the front, and stop this train!" At this, Chess smiled her Cheshire grin, did an informal salute using two fingers, and backflipped into the hatch leading to the interior of the train car. Nodding at their teacher, Weiss and Blake followed suit.

Upon landing, Chess immediately spun in a circle on one foot, with a small whirlwind of cards surrounding her. When she stopped, she giggled uncontrollably at the mangled and groaning White Fang members. When Weiss and Blake joined her, they shared a look of concern for this casual brutality, but shrugged it off and kept moving. As the group moved forward, they came across a familiar figure in one of the cars.

"Go ahead. I got this." Chess kept her words clipped and concise. Nodding, the monochrome duo moved to the next car, and left Chess to face her opponent. Speaking once more, she greeted the figure.

"Hello Alys."

* * *

"So... This doesn't seem like your typical thief's operation. No, this seems like something a monster would do." Neo flinched at the word 'monster', but said nothing, so Chess continued. "So what monster is behind this, hm? What sort of mastermind has you chained like a dog on a leash? It's not Torchwick, he's as much a prisoner as you. But he's Huntsman trained... Which means the mastermind would need to be stronger than a Huntsm-" Chess suddenly stopped. Paling rapidly, she stared at Neo, who refused to meet her eyes.

"No..." Chess staggered backward a step. "Alys, you're not... Not **her**...? Please. Please, for the love of everything you hold dear, tell me you are **not** working for **HER!** " At Neo's silence, Chess stood in shock, as tears began trailing down her cheeks. Pausing for a moment to gather her thoughts, she stood resolute as she began speaking once more. "Alys, if you ever cared for me, if I was ever your friend, please. Don't do this, don't make me fight you. I don't want to fight you... Anyone but you..."

Neo's resolve wavered. As she looked at Chess' tear-streaked face, all she could see was the little girl she had set free so long ago. Beginning to cry herself, she stepped slowly forward, then ran and hugged Chess as hard as she could.

Chess stood there and hugged her dearest friend, knowing what she would have to do. With a resigned voice, she began to whisper into Neo's ear.

"If we're really friends... You won't come back." With this, she pushed Neo away slightly. Seeing the confused look on her face, Chess smiled...

Then she span and kicked Neo through the wall of the train car, and into the tunnel.

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

 **geeetttttt dunked on!**

 **No but in all seriousness, some explaining. Chess kicked her out of the train, because she had no choice. She couldn't keep moving forward without beating Neo, otherwise she would've had to bring her in for her crimes. She wanted her best friend to remain free, so she kicked her off the train. Chess had faith that Neo would be able to survive, having seen her semblance and knowing that one kick wouldn't deplete her Aura by much.**

 **The Undertale reference is simply because I've been watching and reading a shitload of Undertale stuff recently, so I kinda felt like it.**

 **By the way, when I mention 'flows', 'streams' or 'limbs' of cards, please know that what I'm thinking of, is something similar to how Pyrrha controls the soda cans with her polarity in the Volume 2 food fight, how they seem to form tentacle-like appendages, or a flow of cans that seems very fluid, despite being made up of many solids. That's pretty much what I mean. I didn't actually put any of those phrases in this chapter, but keep it in mind for future reference. (And past reference I suppose, there's been a few moments where I've pictured that sort of thing with the cards.)**

 **Forgive me if I ramble, it's 7:30am and I haven't slept in 2 days.**

 **Adios, I need to sleep.**

 **EDIT: So I'm making this edit about 6 weeks after I actually wrote this chapter, and literally right as I'm about to publish it. I have decided that I will probably write a fic involving the Dante/Nero inspired OC I mentioned, as well as another OC I've actually thought up in the week since I published the last chapter. This one will take a fair chunk of inspiration from Jinx out of League of Legends. I gotta admit, I'm not really a fan of the game, but I've always loved Jinx as a character, so I made an OC heavily inspired by her. So yeah, my next fic will probably involve both OC's, given the fact that I've written them into each other's backstories as longtime friends and partners.**

 **I don't know when I'll be writing this, let alone publishing it, so don't get too excited, but yeah, I'll probably get around to it. Anyway, that's pretty much all I wanted to say for now, and I'll reveal more about the characters when I publish the fic.**

 **Welp, hope you enjoyed this chapter, and if you did feel free to leave a review and/or PM any questions.**

 **Sm0key out.**


	30. Chapter 26 - Breach

Chess moved on to the next car, just in time to see the White Fang Lieutenant send Weiss flying to the next car. He went to follow, but had to raise his... chainsaw? Sword? Chainsword? Whatever it was, he had to raise it to block a sudden barrage of cards headed for his face. Turning, he faced the new girl and frowned. Something about her seemed vaguely familiar...

It wasn't until Chess smiled her signature grin that he realised... He was fighting Lady Luck. Frowning, he turned fully to her, and grunted in annoyance. He opened his mouth to make a snarky remark, but before he could even utter a word there was a wave of cards flying at him. Acting quickly, he deflected most of them with his weapon, and lunged at Lady Luck. As the Lieutenant was about to hit her, she vanished in a puff of mist. Turning from side to side, he couldn't see her, but obeyed some internal instinct and dove backwards. Seeing the cards impact the floor where he had been a moment before, he knew he had made the right choice. The White Fang Lieutenant was about to charge forward when suddenly he jerked, and slumped to the ground.

Chess stared at Blake with a slightly disapproving expression.

"You ruined my fun!" She exclaimed loudly, only to hear Blake's urgent response.

"Get up here, we have to get topside. The controls are destroyed, we can't stop the train!" Seeing the urgency, Chess grabbed Blake and evaporated to the top of the train just in time to see Weiss join them. Ruby arrived a few seconds later with Doctor Oobleck and Zwei in tow, and Blake proceeded to fill them in. Chess, meanwhile, glanced up and her eyes widened.

"GET DOWN!" She screamed as she formed a barrier of cards, each glowing a bright blue. Weiss saw this and quickly added one of her glyphs to the barrier, reinforcing it.

Then, the train hit the end of the track.

* * *

"...Chess...? We... you! Get...! Come... PLEASE!" Words faded in and out of Chessur's hearing as she lay stunned and half-conscious. She vaguely recognised the voice as Ruby's, and shakily stood, still not able to properly hear.

"Chess! Are you okay?!" Ruby was panicking, so Chess went to calm her down. Unfortunately, her body chose this moment to stagger, and she suddenly dropped to all fours. Before she could say anything, she went into a coughing fit. It was only once Chess heard Ruby's shocked gasp that she realised she had coughed up blood.

 _Fuck, I guess that barrier took a lot out of me..._

She didn't have time to think any further, as she immediately noticed Grimm attacking the other 3 members of their team, who had come out of the crash unharmed. Spotting a Beowolf behind Ruby, Chess quickly lunged forward and buried her knife into its head, watching with satisfaction as it ceased struggling and went limp. Stumbling off the Grimm's decaying corpse, Chess spotted a dead White Fang member but a few metres away from the couple.

Grabbing the gun off the dead grunt, she struggled her way over to a wall next to a store, where she fell into a sitting position. All the while, Ruby was fighting another couple of Beowolves that had come to attack. As Ruby reached her, Chess waved her girlfriend off.

"Go, I'll try and cover you. Just make sure you kick some ass." At this Ruby looked worried, so Chess lightly shoved her back towards the battle. With one more look at her girlfriend, Ruby ran to fight the Grimm incursion.

Sitting against the wall, Chess did her best to cover Ruby. Unfortunately, Chess had never once fired a gun in her life, and so her aim was understandably horrendous. She started to aim away from Ruby when most of the shots missed the Grimm and almost hit the petite redhead.

After a short while, Chess smiled as she saw JNPR and CFVY drop in, along with Sun and Neptune. She also happened to notice Ironwood's massive ship bringing in reinforcements as well.

It was kinda hard to miss.

...Holy shit, did the guy in red just **explode** an Ursa Major?

 _Wow. That is some serious firepower._ Chess smiled. _I wanna fight him._

After CFVY finished **utterly destroying** most of the Grimm in the plaza, the teachers arrived, and Chess was stunned. Both by the fact that Professor Goodwitch's semblance was stupidly powerful... and the fact that Port was actually somewhat capable.

That last part was especially shocking.

Soon the Breach was finished, and everyone stood around relishing their victory. Chess still lay against the wall, and found herself alone outside the circle. That was okay, Chess was tired anyway.

So, very... tired.

She just needed...

a little

nap

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

 **Soooo I know this is short, but quite frankly I really, really suck at writing fight scenes. I've tried, and no matter what I do I'm not happy with it. So honestly, most of the time the fight scenes will either be short, put in the background, or -if I have to do them- very shitty.**

 **Sorry.**

 **(BTW: A reader by the name of 'Ultimatrix Bearer' didn't realise this, so I'll clarify for anyone who didn't get it. In chapter 16, I specifically stated that Alys -AKA Neo- was the one to cause Chess to escape from the facility she was in. The 'dream' was a memory.**

 **"One turning to leave, subtly leaving a razor blade. The other grinning, knowing they can finally escape."**

 **For context, at that point Chess was quite literally strapped to a table and hooked up to some machines that were doing... things. Things that are spoiler-y things. She used the razor blade to cut the straps and escape during at the most opportune time.**

 **FYI, just in case some people still don't get it, all of the 'dreams' -the entire sections in italics- in Act IV are in fact memories. They are Chess' memories.)**

 **Still, hope you liked the chapter! This is probably the end of this Act, sorry to cut it short but over the last couple months I've sort of lost my motivation for writing. Like I have said before, I do plan to finish this, but it might take quite a while, so I hope you can be patient with me. In the meantime, if someone wants to do fanart or write their own stories about Chess, feel free! If there's something you're not sure on about her appearance, or her backstory, or her abilities, then feel free to ask. As long as it's already been revealed in this fic, I'll clarify anything you like!**

 **Anyway, I need to go and sleep. I don't know why I always write these at ungodly hours, but hey, it's when I feel motivated I guess. Well, I'm gonna finish up.**

 **Hope you enjoyed, feel free to leave a review, and/or PM any questions.**

 **Sm0key out.**


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